U.S. Air Force Leads the Nation in Green Power Purchases

April 27, 2005

The members of the organization buying the most green power in the United States often wear green themselves—camouflage green, that is. In 2004, the largest U.S. buyer of green power was the U.S. Air Force, which bought more than 321,000 megawatt-hours of renewable energy, with bases in California, Texas, New Mexico, Washington, and North and South Dakota leading the way. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) list of the top 25 buyers of green power participating in its Green Power Partnership, released on April 19th, also includes the U.S. Navy, the EPA, DOE, the U.S. General Services Administration, and the World Bank. The top companies on the list include Johnson & Johnson, Whole Foods Market, and WhiteWave Foods. Together, the top 25 EPA Green Power Partners are buying more than 1.6 million megawatt-hours of renewable power each year. See the U.S. Air Force press release, the EPA press release, and the EPA's top 25 list.

The Air Force's green power purchases are hardly a fluke, in fact, a report released in March by the Department of Defense (DoD) concluded that green power purchases can provide its largest source of renewable energy, although the DoD prefers the energy security benefits of on-site production of renewable energy. The study found the potential for 70 average megawatts of wind power at 109 DoD facilities as well as three or four possible sites for geothermal power plants, six to eight possible sites for geothermal heating systems, and 430 locations where some form of solar energy use is practical. See the "DoD Renewable Energy Assessment" (PDF 168 KB) and for background information, see the DoD Renewables Assessment Web site. Download Acrobat Reader.