EPA Recognizes Edmond as Leading Green Power Community
City recognized for a third time
Edmond, OK – The City of Edmond announced today that for the third year it has been designated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a Green Power Community. Edmond is collectively using more than 97 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power annually, which is enough green power to meet 11 percent of the community’s total electricity use.
Edmond is the first EPA Green Power Community in the state of Oklahoma, joining 53 other Green Power Communities nationwide. The City is ranked 25th, based on the percentage of green power used.
“As always it is good to be recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,” said Phil Jones, Sustainability Planner for the City of Edmond. “The purchase of green power and the City’s use of other renewable energy sources helps our community become more resilient. Through Edmond Electric and the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority (OMPA), renewable energy is just another part of doing business. OMPA currently purchases wind energy from the Oklahoma Wind Energy Center near Woodward, and the Canadian Hills Wind Farm near El Reno. In 2014 over 10% of OMPA’s power production was from wind generation. That’s enough to cut the (CO2) emissions from 19,869 homes’ energy use for a year, or 24,503,928 gallons of gasoline consumed. Additionally, OMPA typically gets about 14% of their energy resources from the Kaw Lake Hydroelectric Plant near Ponca City, and another renewable source is the Landfill Gas Plant at Sand Springs. The City is fortunate to have a power supplier in the OMPA, which looks to the future. Other renewable energy efforts by the City include geothermal installations at several City facilities. The new Mitch Park YMCA installed 300 geothermal wells, and the future Public Safety Center will utilize 140 geothermal wells when it is built. The Crosstimbers Complex at Covell and I35 also installed a number of wells when it was built in 2005. These will save the City thousands of dollars on annual operating costs.”
Drake Rice, OMPA Director of Member Services, said that in regard to Green Power the City of Edmond “continues to be the leader among municipal electric systems in Oklahoma and the nation in the promotion and sale of renewable energy to its customers.”
Green power is electricity that is generated from environmentally preferable renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, eligible biogas, biomass, and low-impact hydro. Purchases of green power help accelerate the development of new renewable energy capacity nationwide and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector.
According to the U.S. EPA, the Edmond Community’s green power purchase of more than 97 million kWh is equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of 6,000 homes’ energy use for a year, or roughly 7,526,325 gallons of gasoline consumed.
About EPA’s Green Power Partnership
The Green Power Partnership is a voluntary program that encourages organizations to use green power as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with electricity use. The Partnership currently has more than 1,500 Partner organizations voluntarily purchasing billions of kilowatt-hours of green power annually. Partners include a wide variety of leading organizations such as Fortune 500® companies, small and medium sized businesses, local, state, and federal governments, and colleges and universities. For additional information, please visit http://www.epa.gov/greenpower.
