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Awards Recognize Green Power Purchasers, Suppliers, Promoters

The 2008 Green Power Leadership Awards highlight standout efforts in buying, supplying and developing markets for renewable energy.

Companies, utilities, cities and even the Air Force and a baseball team were recognized for supporting renewable energy by the 2008 Green Power Leadership Awards.

Presented at the National Renewable Energy Marketing Conference in Denver, the awards are given to leaders in purchasing, supplying and developing markets for renewable power.

The Environmental Protection Agency, which administers the purchasing awards, named Cisco, Intel, the University of Pennsylvania, WhiteWave Foods and the community of Bellingham, Wash., its Green Power Partners of the Year.

The On Site Generation awards went to Kohl's and Lundberg Family Farms. Of the 133 solar photovoltaic arrays Kohl's plans to have on stores in Oregon, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland, 48 are active and 52 are planned to be online by the end of the year. Lundberg Family Farms, which purchases enough wind power renewable energy certificates equal to its power use, has two on-site solar photovoltaic arrays that generate 688,000 kilowatt hours a year.

The Green Power Purchasing awards went to The Estee Lauder Companies, city of Houston, ING, Merritt 7 Corporate Park, Oregon State University, PepsiCo, The Philadelphia Phillies, Powdr Resorts and the U.S. Air Force.

For the supplier awards, handled by the Department of Energy, AmerenUE, based in St. Louis, took the New Green Power Program or Company award for its Pure Power program, which was founded in October 2007 and is now the largest green pricing program in the Midwest.

The Small Residential/Commercial Green Power Program or Supplier of the Year went to the city of Palo Alto utilities' PaloAltoGreen program, which draws energy only from new local and regional wind and solar energy generation.

Sterling Planet in Norcross, Ga., and 3Degrees in San Francisco took the awards for Large Commercial/Institutional Green Power Program or Supplier of the Year. 3Degrees supports wind, solar, landfill gas and biomass projects in 23 states, and Sterling Planet has offered renewable energy certificates since 2000, selling 4.5 billion kilowatt-hours of RECs between July 2007 and June 2008.

The Center for Resource Solutions' market development awards recognize companies, organizations and individuals working to build the market for green power.

The Green Power Beacon award, for innovative marketing campaigns, went to Portland General Electric's launch of GreenPowerOregon.com, which includes special features only for renewable power customers. Detroit Edison received an honorable mention for teaming up its GreenCurrents program with music venue The Ark, offsetting electricity at certain events with renewable energy and providing promotions to enroll event attendees in GreenCurrents.

The Green Power Pilot award, recognizing outreach efforts, went to the Energy Action Coalition's Campus Climate Challenge, with Green Mountain Energy Company receiving an honorable mention for a marketing campaign aimed at the Hispanic market in Texas.

Dr. Jan Hamrin, founder of the Center for Resource Solutions, received the Green Power Pioneer award for the work she has done over the last 30-plus years. Hamrin created the Green-e brand and certification programs for renewable energy, has managed solar programs in California and served as a renewable energy advisor for a number of groups, including the G-8 Renewable Energy Task Force.

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