For the second consecutive year, the University of Oklahoma is the Big 12 Conference Champion for using more green power than any other school in the conference, according to rankings just released by the U.S. Environmental Agency.

Since April 2006, EPA’s Green Power Partnership has tracked and recognized the collegiate athletic conferences with the highest combined green power use in the nation. The Individual Conference Champion Award recognizes the school that has the largest individual use of green power within a qualifying conference.

OU beat its conference rivals by using nearly 154 million kilowatt-hours of green power, representing 85 percent of the school’s annual electricity usage. OU is buying green power through a power purchase agreement with Oklahoma Gas & Electric.  This demonstrates a proactive choice to switch away from traditional sources of electricity generation and support cleaner renewable energy alternatives.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the University of Oklahoma’s green power use of nearly 154 million kWh is equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide emissions from the electricity use of nearly 15,000 average American homes annually, or the CO2 emissions of more than 22.000 passenger vehicles per year.

Thirty-tree collegiate conferences and 79 schools competed in the 2013-2014 challenge, collectively using nearly 2.3 billion kWh of green power.  EPA will extend the College and University Green Power Challenge for a ninth year, to conclude in spring 2015.  EPA’s Green Power Challenge is open to all U.S. colleges, universities and conferences.  To qualify, a collegiate athletic conference must include at least one school that qualifies as a Green Power Partner, and the conference must collectively use at least 10 million kWh of green power. For more information, visit http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/initiatives/cu_challenge.htm.

The Big 12’s collective green power purchase of more than 282 million kWh is equivalent to avoiding the CO2 emissions from the electricity use of nearly 30,000 average American homes, or the annual CO2 emissions of more than 22,000 passenger vehicles.

Green power is 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 reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector.