Naperville's Renewable Energy Program makes top 10
The City of Naperville announced Friday that its Renewable Energy Program made the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) annual top 10 list in 2010. With a customer participation rate of 8.2 percent as of April 2011, the program is the sixth highest in the country for customer participation rate. This is the fourth year that the Renewable Energy Program has made the top 10 list.
“I'm a member of the city's Renewable Energy Program and am grateful for the benefits it provides all residents,” Mayor A. George Pradel said. “For only a few dollars extra each month, we can get clean, renewable electricity from natural sources. This means fewer pollutants, healthier air and a safer Naperville for everyone.”
Naperville customers are saving 14,427 metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution per year as a result of their participation in the renewable energy program. The cumulative estimated environmental benefit created by the renewable energy purchased in this program is equivalent to removing 2,829 cars from the road, conserving 1.617 million gallons of gas or planting 3,067 acres of trees. More than 4,600 residential and commercial customers participate in the program.
“Naperville's utility customers understand the importance of choosing to preserve our earth's natural resources,” Community Relations Manager Nadja Lalvani said. “Being ranked sixth in the nation for customer participation percentage out of more than 850 utilities that offer this type of program is really a testament to our customers' willingness to embrace green power options and manage their energy use in an environmentally friendly way.”
NREL annually assesses and ranks the nation's leading utility green power programs in the following categories: total sales of renewable energy to program participants, total number of customer participants, the percentage of customer participation, green power sales as a percentage of total utility retail electricity sales, and the lowest price premium charged for a green power program using new renewable resources.
According to the NREL analysis, more than 850 utilities across the U.S. now offer green power programs, and utility program green power sales exceeded 6 million megawatt-hours (MWh) in 2010. Wind energy now represents more than three-fourths of electricity generated for green energy programs nationwide. The City of Naperville partners with Community Energy, Inc., to offer a blend of Illinois wind and solar-generated electricity to all of its electricity customers.
Golden, Colo.-based NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. The NREL top 10 lists for 2010 can be viewed in their entirety at www.eere.energy.gov/greenpower/resources/tables/topten.shtml.
For more information about the Naperville Renewable Energy Program, or to sign up for this award-winning program, customers can call (866) 946-3123 or visit www.naperville.il.us/renewable.aspx. For more information on the City of Naperville, visit www.naperville.il.us. Sign up to receive the latest news on the City of Naperville's projects and initiatives via e-mail at www.naperville.il.us/enews.aspx.