The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia is a winner of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2008-2009 Green Power College and University Challenge.

 

By purchasing nearly 193 million kilowatt-hours of green power, Penn achieved the equivalent environmental impact of avoiding the carbon dioxide emissions of nearly than 25,000 passenger cars annually.

 

"Choosing green power helps all of us breathe cleaner, healthier cleaner air," said William C. Early, acting regional administrator for the EPA’s mid-Atlantic region. "Penn is demonstrating the responsibility that's needed to collectively move toward a clean energy future."

 

Other Pennsylvania winners include: Pennsylvania State University (83.6 million kWh) and Carnegie Mellon (24.8 million kWh), Juniata College (2.8 million kWh), Bucknell University (4 million kWh), Duquesne University (12.5 million kWh) and Allegheny College (1.9 million kWh).

 

For three years running, EPA’s Green Power Partnership has tracked and recognized the collegiate athletic conferences with the highest combined green power purchases in the nation. The partnership encourages organizations to buy green power as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with traditional fossil fuel-based electricity use.

 

This year's challenge included 44 competing institutions representing 22 different conferences nationwide, collectively purchasing more than 1 billion kWh of green power. This has the equivalent environmental impact of avoiding the CO2 emissions of more than 136,000 passenger cars.

EPA is also kicking-off of the 2009-2010 Green Power Challenge this week. It will run until the spring of 2010.

 

EPA ranks collegiate athletic conferences by the total amount of green power bought by their member schools. Each school in the conference has to qualify as an EPA Green Power partner and each conference has to collectively purchase at least 10 million kWh of green power.

 

For more information about this year's winners, visit the College and University Green Power Challenge webpage.