when it comes to renewable energy. The city of Corvallis, Oregon, is No. 1 when it comes to purchasing green power, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Communities Program.
The city of 55,000, about 90 minutes from Portland, purchases 13 percent of its electricity from environmentally-friendly sources, or more than 100 million kilowatts (100,000 megawatts). The largest purchaser of renewable juice there is Oregon State University, thanks to a “green fee” passed by students in 2007. The sources include wind, solar, geothermal, biogas, biomass and low-impact hydro, according to city officials.
There’s something about Oregon (which boasts a link to air quality data on its state home page). Half of the cities in the EPA’s Top Ten list for green power purchases are in Oregon. The others are Beaverton, Bend, Gresham and Salem.
Green Power Program communities are ones in which local government, businesses and residents band together to purchase big chunks of green energy. Corvallis has increased its ranking this year from No. 9.
For the curious, the full EPA list includes cities in Washington, California, Colorado and Wisconsin in the Top 10.
