Environmental Leader

Schools in New York, Texas and Maryland top the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s inaugural ranking of the top 20 primary and secondary schools nationwide that use the most power from renewable energy sources. The top EPA Green Power Partner schools are buying nearly 113 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of renewable energy annually, equivalent to carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) that would be produced from the electricity use of 11,000 American homes for one year.

The top five schools using renewable energy are:

1. Austin Independent School District (Austin, Texas)
2. Round Rock Independent School District (Round Rock, Texas)
3. Rochester City School District (Rochester, New York)
4. Bullis School (Potomac, Maryland)
5. The Dalton School (New York, New York)

Austin Independent and Round Rock Independent derive 39 and 25 percent, respectively, of their total electricity from biogas and wind power sources. Eighteen percent of Rochester City’s total electricity comes from wind power. Both the Bullis School and The Dalton School derive 100 percent of their total electricity from wind power.

Click here for the complete list of top schools.

EPA defines green power as power generated from renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, biogas, and low-impact hydropower. Green power electricity generates less pollution than conventional power and produces no net increase in greenhouse gas emissions, says the EPA.

EPA’s Green Power Partnership works with more than 1,100 organizations to voluntarily purchase green power to reduce the environmental impacts of conventional electricity use. Overall, Green Power Partners are buying more than 17 billion kWh of green power annually, equivalent to the CO2 emissions from electricity use of nearly 1.7 million American homes annually.