The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is asking Fortune 500 companies to step up to the plate and double their current level of green power purchasing. Green power is environmentally friendly electricity obtained from renewable sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, biogas and low-impact hydro. The goal of the green power challenge is to exceed 5 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of green power purchases among participating companies. Five billion kilowatt hours could power more than 400,000 average American homes or avoid the equivalent CO2 emissions associated with more than 680,000 passenger cars each year.
There are more than 40 Fortune 500 companies participating in the Green Power Partnership; their annual green power purchases currently total 2.5 billion kWh. EPA’s current top five Fortune 500 Green Power Partners are Wells Fargo Company, Whole Foods Markets, Johnson & Johnson, Starbucks and DuPont Company.
The Green Power Partnership encourages organizations to purchase green power as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with conventional electricity use. The Green Power Partnership is comprised of Fortune 500 companies, local, state, and federal governments, trade associations, and colleges and universities. Green Power Partnership members purchase more than 7 billion kilowatt hours of green power on an annual basis.
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Samuel W. Bodman and Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson announced the awarding of $1 billion in federal tax incentives to nine companies to bring about rapid deployment of advanced coal-based power generation and gasification technologies. The technological improvements will bring us closer to the next step in the development of near-zero emission power plants. Secretary Bodman made the announcement in remarks at the National Coal Council's Annual Fall meeting, in Washington, DC.
Honda Motor Co., Ltd. plans to establish a wholly-owned subsidiary, Honda Soltec Co., Ltd., which will produce and sell the next-generation thin film solar cell independently developed by Honda. The new company will lead Honda to make a full-scale entry into the solar cell business.
The next-generation solar cell to be produced and sold by Honda Soltec was developed by Honda Engineering Co., Ltd., the production engineering subsidiary of Honda. By using thin film made from a compound of copper, indium, gallium and selenium (CIGS), Honda’s next-generation solar cell achieves a major reduction in the amount of energy consumed during the manufacturing process by approximately 50% compared to what is required to produce conventional crystal silicon solar cells. This makes the new solar cell more environmentally-friendly by reducing the amount of CO2 generated even from the production stage.