Hydro, Solar, Sourcing Renewables, Wind  -  July 26, 2016

Tech giants, plus Kohl's, maintain leadership ranking of green power users

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partnership on July 25 released updates to its Top Partner Rankings, which highlight organizations that are choosing to use electricity from clean, renewable sources.

On its list of top 100 national partners, which is updated quarterly, the Green Power Partnership added seven new names, six of which are corporations: Goldman Sachs Group Inc., IKEA, Biogen Inc., Cinemark USA Inc., Philips Electronics and Philips Lighting, ranking 19th, 37th, 69th, 81st, 60th and 83rd, respectively. The EPA said Intel Corp., Lockheed Martin, The Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Best Buy and Colgate-Palmolive  Co. shook up the list even more with large increases in their green power use. 

Intel topped the list for the second-consecutive quarter, with total annual green power usage of 3,419,967,843 kWh comprising biomass, geothermal, small hydro, solar and wind. The EPA notes that the usage figures are based on annualized partner contract amounts, not calendar year totals.

Runner-up in the rankings was Microsoft Corp., which totaled 2,699,210,000  kWh comprising biogas, biomass, solar and wind. Both Intel and Microsoft's green power usage accounted for 100% of their total electricity use, according to the EPA program. 

The two leaders were again followed by a retail name: Kohl's Department Stores; then came Cisco Systems Inc., followed by Google Inc. and Apple. Inc. 

The Green Power Partnership also added four new partners to its list of the top 30 onsite green power users, including General Motors Co.'s Orion assembly plant at number eight and IKEA at number 11. 

The Green Power Partnership is a Smart Energy Decisions content partner. 

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