U.S. agency coordinates purchase of wind and biomass certificates

LAKEWOOD, Colorado, US, August 17, 2005 (Refocus Weekly)

Ten U.S. energy agencies and an army base have teamed up to buy 590,000 MWh of green power.

The Western Area Power Administration says the five-year purchase is for 118 million kWh a year, from wind and biomass facilities. The agencies include: Berkeley Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in California, for a 25 million kWh; Fort Carson in Colorado for 40 million kWh; Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico for 12 million kWh; National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado for 11.5 million kWh; Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico for 6.7 million kWh; Kansas City Plant in Kansas for 4.5 million kWh; Pantex Plant in Amarillo in Texas for 2.5 million kWh; Golden Field Office & Central Regional Office in Colorado for 625,000 kWh; and Western Area Power Administration for 15 million kWh.

The certificates will come from turbines at the windfarm under construction by Nebraska Public Power District in Ainsworth, and the Mountain View windfarm in Palm Springs, California. The sources for biomass certificates will come from Sierra Pacific Industries’ sawmill sites in Anderson, Lincoln and Sonora, California.

WAPA coordinated the requests for proposal for all the agencies and also committed to purchasing some of the green tags. All certificates are supplied by Sterling Planet, a third party marketer.

Purchasing renewable energy credits helps to meet the goals outlined in the ‘Greening the Government Through Efficient Energy Management’ initiative, which provides goals for federal agencies to expand the use of renewable energy.

“It’s easy and cost effective to get renewable energy certificates through this program,” says Theresa Williams of WAPA. “We are pleased to continue our commitment to support renewable energy.”

WAPA is a division of the Department of Energy that markets power from hydroelectric plants owned and operated by the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 15 western and central states. It annually transmits 10,000 MW of power.

Renewable energy certificates, also known as green tags, are the intangible environmental benefits associated with generating electricity by a renewable energy resource. RECs do not require the electrons to be physically delivered to the purchaser, but offset the difference between cost of the green power and electricity from fossil energy sources.


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