WASHINGTON, D.C. — New York University purchased 118 kilowatt-hours of renewable energy between 2006 and 2007, earning it the greenest-school title in the EPA's annual College & University Green Power Challenge.

Among collegiate conferences, the Ivy League schools beat out beat out 15 other collegiate groups in its power purchases.

"EPA hopes this year's competition inspires schools around the nation to participate in the 2007-2008 EPA College & University Green Power Challenge," said acting assistant administrator Bill Wehrum. "Buying green power is a great way to demonstrate that what's good for the environment is also good for higher education."

Since April 2006, the EPA's Green Power Partnership has ranked conferences by the quantity of green power purchased by their respective colleges and universities. These conferences must have schools that qualify as EPA Green Power Partners and make a collective green power purchase of at least 10 million kWh conference-wide in order to be eligible for the challenge.

The 33 schools and 16 conferences taking part in this year's challenge are buying more than 750 million kWh of green power. The EPA estimates that this amount of green power is equal to the electricity needed to power more than 60,000 average American homes each year.

Leading the Ivy League was the University of Pennsylvania followed by Harvard and Yale. The collective total purchase of these three schools ranked the Ivy League first among all conferences, with a total of more than 140 million kWh of green power purchased.

EPA also recognized 16 individual conference champions with the largest green power purchases within their respective conferences. The conference champions are: University of Pennsylvania, New York University, Pennsylvania State University, Duke University, University of California at Santa Cruz, Connecticut College, Western Washington University, University of Utah, University of Central Oklahoma, Syracuse University, University of Washington, The Evergreen State College, Oberlin College, University at Buffalo, University of Colorado, Boulder, and Rowan University.

Green power is produced from eligible renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, biomass and low-impact hydro. Green power is considered cleaner than conventional sources of electricity, has a superior environmental profile to conventional power, and does not contribute additional carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere.

The EPA's Green Power Partnership encourages organizations to buy green power as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with fossil fuel-based electricity use. The partnership comprises of a diverse set of organizations including Fortune 500 companies, small and medium businesses, government institutions as well as colleges and universities.