14 DAY TRIAL // On January 28th, 2008, Intel reached comprehensive investment in 1.3 billion kilowatt hours a year of renewable energy. This fact makes the company the single largest corporate acquirer of green power in the United States. Intel leads in a challenge issued in December 2006 by EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), in which 53 Fortune 500 companies are collectively purchasing over six billion kilowatt hours of green power annually. EPA declared that the amount of purchases surpassed its goals set in the Green Power Partnership. The six billion kWh of green power are equal to the avoided carbon dioxide emissions of more than 570 million gallons of gasoline each year, or the equivalent of electricity needed to power almost 670,000 average American homes.
EPA Administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, said that: "EPA applauds our Fortune 500 partners for protecting our environment by purchasing green power." And he added that EPA's environmental partners were proving that there was no need to wait for a signal, in order to go green by voluntarily shifting to renewable energy.
On Green Power Partners Top 25 list, Intel occupies the first place, as it also does on the Fortune 500 Green Power Partners list. RECs (renewable energy certificates) represent the standard of the clean energy marketplace and it has a proven track record of measurable results. The second place on the Top 25 list is taken by PepsiCo, with over 1.1 billion kilowatt hours a year of renewable energy. These two companies lead by far in this competition, as the third place barely reaches half the amount PepsiCo does.
EPA Green Power Partners are buying more than 13 billion kWh of Green Power annually and their number is about 850. The Environmental Protection Agency is trying this way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with conventional electricity usage, and to develop new, renewable generation resources nationwide. Green power resources produce electricity with a superior environmental profile and produce no net increase to greenhouse gas emissions.
The entire list of the 53 Fortune 500 Green Power Partners listed in the descending order of purchase size can be viewed on EPA Newsroom page.