“While other communities are beginning to buy green power to support clean, renewable sources of electricity, Corvallis is the first Northwest community to join the Green Power Partnership and purchase clean energy at a level high enough to meet the program’s requirements,” says Matt Clouse, director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partnership.
Corvallis ranks first among Oregon cities for the percentage of customers supporting renewable energy through an optional renewable energy program — Pacific Power’s Blue Sky. There are 2,811 households and 93 businesses enrolled in the Blue Sky program, which accounts for nearly 12.5 percent of the company’s customer base in the Corvallis area. The city itself purchases 75,000 kilowatt-hours of Blue Sky wind energy each month.
Purchases of green power by business and residents will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1,718 tons, which has the benefit of taking 3,531 cars off the road or planting 337,364 trees every month.
“Eight years ago, just 24.5 megawatts of renewable energy served customers in the Pacific Northwest, and today there are more than 1,000 megawatts of clean energy generation,” said Diane Zipper, director of green power programs for the Renewable Northwest Project, a nonprofit renewable energy advocacy group.
The future for renewables continues to be strong. Zipper says approximately 430 megawatts of new wind projects are under construction in Oregon and Washington. Throughout the region, approximately 1,450 additional megawatts have received building permits. “Customer support for green power programs definitely has helped bring some of these new projects online,” she said.
“While clean electricity sources are capable of supplying a large amount of the country’s electrical supply, today less than 2 percent comes from non-hydro renewable energy sources,” Clouse says. “A major component of EPA’s Green Power Partnership’s mission is to increase the amount of electricity produced from clean, renewable sources. To do this, we all need to work together to make it happen.”
