April 27, 2015
The Catholic University of America was recognized April 27 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a 2014-2015 Individual Conference Champion of the College & University Green Power Challenge for using more green power than any other school in the Landmark Conference.Since April 2006, EPA's Green Power Partnership has tracked and recognized the collegiate athletic conferences with the highest combined green power use in the nation. The Individual Conference Champion Award recognizes the school that has the greatest individual use of green power within a qualifying conference.
The Catholic University of America beat its conference rivals by using more than 40 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power, representing 100% of the school's annual electricity usage. The University buys a utility green power product from Hess Energy Marketing, thereby demonstrating a proactive choice to switch from traditional sources of electricity generation and support cleaner renewable energy alternatives. According to the EPA, Catholic University's green power use of 40 million kWh is equivalent to the electricity use of nearly 4,000 average American homes annually.
The University first invested in green power in 2002. "We have been committed to green power and to expanding our green power sources ever since," says Jerry Conrad, associate vice president for facilities operations. "We are continually looking for ways to not only use green power, but also to operate more efficiently and use less electricity. We will continue to do what is right for the environment and what are good sustainable practices - this leads to good financial savings for the University. It's a win-win solution."
Thirty-three collegiate conferences and 79 schools competed in the 2014-2015 challenge, collectively using nearly 2.4 billion kWh of green power. EPA's Green Power Challenge is open to all U.S. colleges, universities, and conferences. 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.
Green power is electricity that is generated from environmentally preferable renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, eligible biogas, biomass, and low-impact hydro. Using green power helps accelerate the development of new renewable energy capacity nationwide and helps users reduce their carbon footprints.Catholic University has received the Individual Conference Champion Award for the Landmark Conference every year since 2009.