Ohio State recognized for purchase of green power

The Ohio State University is being recognized for helping the Big Ten Conference win the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Green Power Challenge.

Since April 2006, the EPA’s Green Power Partnership has tracked and recognized the collegiate athletic conferences with the highest combined green power purchases in the nation. The U.S. EPA recognized Ohio State for its purchase, which contributed to making the Big Ten Conference the nation’s largest overall purchaser of green power.

The Big Ten had an annual green power usage of more than 256 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) annually, which is equivalent to the electricity use of more than 21,000 average American homes for one year, with Pennsylvania State University leading the conference. The Ivy League, followed by the University Athletic Association are in the No. 2 and No. 3 spots, respectively.

Ohio State has purchased more than 51 million kWh of green power – about nine percent of the school’s annual electricity usage and enough to power about 4,720 homes for a year.
The purchase of green power helps to reduce the environmental impacts associated with the university’s purchased electricity use. The university’s green power purchase will avoid approximately 81.4 million pounds of carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas. The environmental benefit is enough to offset carbon emissions related to the 12,100 tons of waste Ohio State sent to the landfill in 2010.

“This green power purchase is just one example of Ohio State’s leadership in sustainability and its commitment to encouraging sustainable economic growth,” said Aparna Dial, director of Energy Services and Sustainability at Ohio State.

Purchasing the green power is consistent with other efforts, such as the recently launched Buckeye Footprint energy dashboard (http://footprint.osu.edu) that displays real-time energy data for several buildings on campus. In addition to energy information, the dashboard introduces the university community to global concepts, such as ecological and carbon footprints. This tool demonstrates how building energy use affects the university’s carbon footprint.

Learn more about Ohio State’s energy programs visit, http://fod.osu.edu/ess.

For more information on the EPA’s College and University Green Power Challenge, see: http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/initiatives/cu_challenge.htm.