How do you buy green power? How do you make a business case for the benefits of buying power from renewable energy providers? These are just a few of the questions a new document titled The Guide to Purchasing Green Power is hoping to answer. Incorporating technical advice from researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Environmental Energy Technologies Division (EETD), and other institutions, this resource will help organizations diversify their energy supply and reduce the environmental impact of their electricity use. Included is advice from dozens of experts, including facilities and energy managers, buyers, and researchers.
The Guide to Purchasing Green Power is a joint product of four key agencies who are supporting the development of green power markets: the U.S. Department of Energy's Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Green Power Partnership, the Sustainable Enterprise Program of the World Resources Institute (WRI), and the Green-e Renewable Energy Certification Program administered by the Center for Resource Solutions.
"It represents a consensus of the lessons learned over the last 6-plus years about the best ways to buy green power," says EETD's Rich Brown, a lead author. "The Guide is the closest thing there is to an 'official' guide from the federal government for organizations that want to buy green power."
Included in The Guide are:
· Answers to questions about renewable energy and green power.
· A description of environmental benefits.
· Guidelines on how to procure green power and understand green power product certification and verification.
· Sections describing how organizations can approach the development of on-site renewable power generation.
The Guide can be downloaded at (www.eere.energy.gov/femp/techologies/renewable_purchasepower.cfm), (www.epa.gov/greenpower/buygreenpower/guide.htm), (www.thegreenpowergroup.org/publications.html), (www.resource-solutions.org/).
This information was provided by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Environmental Energy Technologies Division (http://eetd.lbl.gov).