Global renewable energy participation up in U.S.

[JAN. 31, 2006]  MONTREAL -- Some of the largest companies in the world announced that they have increased their purchases of renewable energy. The World Resources Institute and members of its Green Power Market Development Group announced 185 new megawatts of renewable energy purchases and projects, bringing the total number of megawatts under contract to 360 -- the average size of a coal-fired power plant. At 360 megawatts, these companies are more than a third of the way to their goal of building markets for 1,000 megawatts of new, cost-competitive green power in the United States.

At a press conference Dec. 1 as part of the United Nations' climate-change meetings, the World Resources Institute also announced the launch of a similar corporate renewable energy purchasing partnership in Europe.

The Green Power Market Development Group is a unique commercial and industrial partnership dedicated to building corporate markets for green power. In the United States its members are Alcoa Inc., The Dow Chemical Company, DuPont, FedEx Kinko's, General Motors, IBM, Interface, Johnson & Johnson, NatureWorks LLC, Pitney Bowes, Staples and Starbucks. In fact, seven of these companies now purchase at least 10 percent of their annual U.S. electricity consumption from renewables. Group members also are among the largest non-utility buyers of renewable energy in the United States.

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