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Oberlin College beats North Coast Athletic Conference rivals in EPA's Green Power Challenge

Release Date: 04/21/2009
Contact Information: William Omohundro, 312-353-8254, omohundro.william@epa.gov

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
No. 09-OPA070

(Chicago, Ill. - April 21, 2009) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 announced today that Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, beat its North Coast Athletic Conference rivals by buying nearly 10 million kilowatt-hours of green power in EPA's 2008-2009 College and University Green Power Challenge. Oberlin's purchase represented 41 percent of the school's annual electricity usage.

EPA estimates Oberlin's green-power purchase is the equivalent amount of electricity needed to power nearly 1,000 average American homes each year or has the equivalent impact of reducing the carbon dioxide emissions of more than 1,000 passenger cars annually. The members of the North Coast Athletic Conference collectively bought nearly 12 million kWh of green power.

"We congratulate Oberlin and the other members of the North Coast Athletic Conference for their green power purchases," said Cheryl Newton, director of EPA Region 5's Air and Radiation Division. "They're helping to improve the air we breathe and cutting greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming."

Oberlin is buying a utility green power product from Oberlin Municipal Light & Power and generating green power on-site, which helps reduce the environmental effects associated with the campus' electricity use.

This year's challenge included 44 competing institutions representing 22 different conferences nationwide. The challenge's cumulative annual purchase of more than 1 billion kWh of green power has the equivalent environmental impact of avoiding the CO2 emissions of more than 136,000 vehicles. The Ivy League, led by the University of Pennsylvania, was this year's overall champion conference with a cumulative annual purchase of more than 225 million kWh.

EPA ranks collegiate athletic conferences by the total amount of green power bought by their member schools. To be eligible, each school in the conference has to qualify as an EPA Green Power partner and each conference has to collectively purchase at least 10 million kWh of green power.

EPA's Green Power Partnership encourages organizations to buy green power as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with traditional fossil fuel-based electricity use. The partnership includes a diverse set of organizations including Fortune 500 companies, small and medium businesses, government institutions as well as a growing number of colleges and universities.

More information on EPA's College and University Green Power Challenge and the list of winners is at https://www.epa.gov/greenpower/initiatives/cu_challenge.htm.

More information on organizations in EPA's Green Power Partnership is at https://www.epa.gov/greenpower/partners/index.htm.