Governor M. Jodi Rell announced today that Connecticut is one of only three states making EPA’s top 50 list of national Green Power Partners. This year, Connecticut will buy more than 98 million kilowatt-hours of green power, which is enough green power to meet 17 percent of the state’s purchased electricity use.

“We are well on track to achieve the goal of obtaining 20 percent of the electricity used by the state of Connecticut from renewable sources by the year 2020,” Governor Rell said. “This demonstrates and validates Connecticut's leadership on energy and climate issues."

  “Green power” is defined as electricity that is generated from environmentally preferable renewable resources, such as solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, biomass, and low-impact hydro. These resources generate electricity with zero anthropogenic (caused by humans) carbon dioxide. In addition, buying green power helps support the development of new renewable energy capacity nationwide.

Connecticut’s purchase of green power resources began with Governor Rell’s Energy Vision for a Cleaner, Greener State, which in September 2006, set a goal of increasing the percentage of clean, renewable energy consumed by state government from all sources to 20 percent by the year 2020.

"By putting market forces to work though an auction on a contract for the state's electricity needs we were able to achieve two important goals:  Reducing the cost of power needed for state facilities and increasing the amount of power we obtain from 'green' energy sources,” Governor Rell said.

          EPA estimates that the state’s green power purchase of more than 98 million kilowatt-hours is equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide emissions of nearly 13,000 passenger vehicles per year, or is the equivalent amount of electricity needed to power more than 9,000 average American homes.


          EPA’s Green Power Partnership is a voluntary program that encourages organizations to purchase green power as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with conventional electricity use. The Partnership currently has more than 1000 Partners voluntarily purchasing billions of kilowatt hours of green power annually. Partners include a wide variety of leading organizations such as Fortune 500 companies, small and medium sized businesses, local, state, and federal governments, trade associations, as well as colleges and universities.

For more information: http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/toplists/top50.htm