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April 23, 2013 — Allegheny College has been recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a 2012-2013 Individual Conference Champion of the College and University Green Power Challenge for using more green power than any other school in the North Coast Athletic Conference.

Since April 2006, EPA’s Green Power Partnership has tracked and recognized the collegiate athletic conferences with the highest combined green power purchases in the nation. The Individual Conference Champion Award recognizes the school that has made the largest individual purchase of green power within a qualifying conference.

Allegheny College beat its conference rivals by using 15 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power, representing 100 percent of the school’s annual electricity usage. Allegheny College purchases renewable energy certificates (RECs) from Constellation, which helps to reduce the environmental impacts associated with the campus’s electricity use.

According to the U.S. EPA, Allegheny College’s green power use of 15 million kWh is equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the electricity use of nearly 2,000 American homes annually, or the CO2 emissions of more than 2,000 vehicles per year.

Thirty-two collegiate conferences and 76 schools competed in the 2012-2013 challenge, collectively purchasing more than 2.2 billion kWh of green power. In order to qualify, a collegiate athletic conference must include at least one school that qualifies as a Green Power Partner, and the conference must collectively use at least 10 million kWh of green power annually. For more information, visit: https://www.epa.gov/greenpower/initiatives/cu_challenge.htm.

Green power is electricity that is generated from environmentally preferable renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, biogas, biomass and low-impact hydropower. Purchases of green power help accelerate the development of new renewable energy capacity nationwide and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector.