On Campus - by Joe Coscarelli on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 8:58 - 3 Comments - 40 views
And, no, I’m not talking about your tuition dollars. No? Tough crowd.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has released a list of its top 50 partners in consuming renewable energy and in a bit of a shocker, New York University snuck in at number twenty-six. Is that higher or lower than our U.S. News and World Report ranking?
According to the EPA, “Purchase figures are based on annualized Partner contract amounts (kilowatt-hours),” and that sort of logic puts Intel, Pepsi and Kohl’s in the top 3, but NYU’s use of wind power receives a nice touch of recognition. According to the list, green power actually accounts for 100% of our total purchased electricity use. Who knew?
Check out the entire list here.
[via The Huffington Post]
3 Comments
Nathaniel Reuter
To answer the question raised in the previous post, what it means is that NYU is paying the premium for electricity. Obviously we aren’t on a separate grid from NYC (although we are building a co-generation plant to supply some of our electrical needs). So when purchasing energy, NYU says they want x amount of energy to be produced by wind farms. Does that electricity come directly to NYU? No. But we are ensuring that the amount of energy we consume is produced by wind farms. As to ConEd, they probably have a partnership with some wind farm, so that they can provide “renewable energy” options to their consumers (i.e. NYU).
I have to say, i’m pleased to see NYU as one of only four schools in the top 50, and with 100% of our energy offset by investments in renewable energy.
Cool, thanks. 
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I’m wondering, though, what consists of electricity purchased by NYU? Because I still see notices from ConEd in the dorms about conserving energy.