EPA Again Recognizes Duquesne for Largest Green Power Use in A-10

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recognized Duquesne as the Individual Conference Champion of the 2015-16 College & University Green Power Challenge for using more green power than any other school in the Atlantic 10 Conference.

Since April 2006, the EPA’s Green Power Partnership has tracked and recognized the collegiate athletic conferences with the highest combined green power use within the program. The Individual Conference Champion Award recognizes the school that uses the most green power in a qualifying conference—Duquesne has garnered the award every year of the challenge since 2007-08.

The University beat its conference rivals by using more than 19 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power, representing 39 percent of the school’s annual electricity usage. This green power usage is equivalent to the electricity use of nearly 1,800 average American homes annually. Duquesne is procuring renewable energy certificates from Direct Energy, demonstrating a proactive choice to switch away from traditional sources of electricity generation and support cleaner renewable energy alternatives.

“The EPA applauds Duquesne University for its commitment to using green power and for taking a leadership position on the environment,” said James Critchfield, manager of the Green Power Partnership. “Duquesne is helping to reduce carbon pollution and provide an excellent example for other higher education institutions to invest in environmental progress.”

The University’s dedication to sustainability has driven the campus to rely 100 percent on clean energy, generating the bulk of its own electricity for heating and cooling, and supplementing with renewable energy purchases. The campus also houses LEED-rated buildings, encourages individual recycling efforts across campus and regularly participates in regional sustainability initiatives.

Green power is zero-emissions electricity that is generated from environmentally preferable renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, eligible biogas, biomass, and low-impact hydro. Using green power helps accelerate the development of new renewable energy capacity nationwide and helps users reduce their carbon footprints. Forty-one college conferences and 94 schools in this year’s challenge collectively used nearly 2.5 billion kWh of green power.