Oak Park Ranks First in Percent of Green Electricity Used
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has designated Oak Park a Green Power Community for the decision to choose renewable energy sources for its community electricity aggregation program. Green Power Communities are cities, towns and villages where the local government, businesses and residents collectively buy green power in amounts that meet or exceed EPA’s purchase requirements as part of the Green Power Partnership. Oak Park is the newest of 32 Green Power Communities nationwide and currently ranks first in terms of highest green power percentage of total electricity use and fifth in amount of green power used. Green power is electricity generated from environmentally preferable renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, biogas, biomass and low-impact hydro.
According to the U.S. EPA, Oak Park’s collective green power purchase of 191 million kWh is equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of nearly 26,000 passenger vehicles per year, or the CO2 emissions from the electricity use of more than 16,000 average American homes annually. For information on the Green Power program, visit www.epa.gov/greenpower.
