EPA Honors 2022 Green Power Leaders
WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the Green Power Leadership Award Winners for 2022, honoring three Green Power Partners across the United States: Bimbo Bakeries USA, Google, and T-Mobile. These organizations exemplify the EPA Green Power Partnership (GPP)’s market leadership and impact principles, driving product innovation, enabling green power access, and accelerating the transition to a pollution-free electricity sector.
"I applaud the winners recognized today for their leadership in promoting the voluntary purchase of clean, renewable energy," said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. "Fighting the climate crisis requires action across our economy, and these companies are showing that every business can play an important and immediate role in powering not only their businesses and growth, but the equitable transition to a clean energy economy."
For more than 20 years, the Green Power Leadership Awards have recognized hundreds of organizations for their exceptional achievements and leadership in the green power marketplace. EPA’s Green Power Partners invest in clean energy technology across the country, facilitate grid improvements, and influence other business to switch to green power, spurring rapid growth of the green power market and paving the way for a clean energy future. Concrete actions by these organizations influence the green power market, increasing access to and use of renewable electricity for all.
This year's Green Power Leadership Award recipients are using approximately 17.4 billion kilowatt-hours of green power, enough to power more than 1.6 million average American homes for a year. Green power is electricity generated from renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, biogas, eligible biomass, and low-impact hydro. These sources offer the greatest environmental benefit compared to conventional power generation. Using green power helps advance the American green power market, which accelerates the development of these resources in the United States.
The EPA Green Power Leadership Award winners for 2022 are:
Bimbo Bakeries USA
Bimbo Bakeries USA is a new Green Power Partner, and this is its first Green Power Leadership Award. Bimbo Bakeries joined the Green Power Partnership using 100% green power – over 490 million kWh annually. Bimbo Bakeries USA has also installed microgrids, comprised of solar arrays coupled with battery storage, at six of its California bakeries. These projects not only expand Bimbo’s renewable portfolio, but also improve grid resiliency and demonstrate clean energy leadership in the food and beverage industry.
Google demonstrates an exemplary use of green power and commitment to innovation through leadership in the green power markets. EPA is recognizing Google in part for developing and sharing its novel methodology for matching carbon-free electricity generation on an hourly basis to better identify and direct its investments and utilization of carbon-free power. Since its last Green Power Leadership Award in 2019, Google has increased its procurement of green power by more than 50% to over 9 billion kWh annually. The company has consistently been at the very top of the Green Power Partnership Ranking List in scale of procurement.
T-Mobile
T-Mobile has made an impact on the green power market with its increase in green power use, ambitious target setting, and support of diversity in corporate clean energy value chains. This past year, T-Mobile increased its usage of renewable energy more than fourfold to 7.8 billion kWh of green power – the single largest increase in green power over a calendar year in the Green Power Partnership’s history. The company has also set ambitious emission reduction targets aligned with the Paris Agreement 1.5-degree pathway to limit global warming. T-Mobile is a member of RE100 and was a founding member of the Diversity in Clean Energy (DiCE) initiative.
Background
EPA established the Green Power Partnership in 2001 to protect human health and the environment by increasing organizations’ voluntary green power use and investment to advance the American market for green power and development of those resources. The GPP provides a framework that includes credible usage benchmarks, market information, technical assistance, and public recognition to companies and other organizations that use green power. In 2020, the GPP had more than 700 Partners voluntarily using nearly 70 billion kilowatt-hours of green power annually. Partners include a wide variety of leading organizations such as Fortune 500® companies; small and medium sized businesses; local, state, and federal governments; and colleges and universities. For additional information, please visit the EPA Green Power Partnership website.
The Green Power Leadership Awards are announced at the Renewable Energy Markets Conference. EPA is the Organizing Sponsor of the Renewable Energy Markets Conference. Please visit Green Power Leadership Awards for a full list of EPA 2022 Green Power Leadership Award winners.