last updated 1st December 05
By 4ecotips

WRI announces major step forward

Some of the largest companies in the world have increased their purchases of renewable energy. The World Resources Institute (WRI) and members of its Green Power Market Development Group announced 185 new megawatts (MW) of renewable energy purchases and projects, bringing the total number of MW under contract to 360 - the average size of a coal-fired power plant.

At 360 MW, these companies are said to be more than a third of the way to their goal of building markets for 1000 MW of new, cost-competitive green power in the United States.

At a press conference as part of the United Nations' climate change meetings, WRI also announced the launch of a similar corporate renewable energy purchasing partnership in Europe.

The Green Power Market Development Group is a unique commercial and industrial partnership dedicated to building corporate markets for green power. In the United States its members are Alcoa Inc., The Dow Chemical Company, DuPont, FedEx Kinko's, General Motors, IBM, Interface, Johnson & Johnson, NatureWorks LLC, Pitney Bowes, Staples and Starbucks.

Jonathon Lash of the WRI says: "These companies are helping society transition from a fossil-fuel based energy system to a diversified, clean energy future. They are demonstrating that these technologies can be part of mainstream corporate energy purchases."

In fact, seven of these companies now purchase at least 10% of their annual U.S. electricity consumption from renewables. Group members also are among the largest non-utility buyers of renewable energy in the United States. Johnson & Johnson is currently the country's largest corporate buyer of green power products.

Johnson & Johnson and General Motors are the nation's second and third largest corporate users of solar photovoltaic systems. GM and DuPont are the country's two largest corporate users of landfill gas for thermal energy while Starbucks, IBM and Johnson & Johnson are the three largest corporate buyers of renewable energy certificates (RECs) from wind farms.

RECs are purchased separately from electricity and allow buyers to support renewable power facilities without being located near the site where the electricity is fed into the wires.

The European partners will evaluate and deploy a variety of renewable energy technologies and engage the marketplace to take green power to scale. Collaborating with WRI on this effort is The Climate Group, an international non-profit organization dedicated to building coalitions of businesses as well as city, state and national governments to address climate change.