With more than 1.43 billion kilowatt hours of its electricity coming from renewable energy sources, Intel remains the largest green power purchaser in the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's latest Green Power list.
That's slightly more than half of the company's entire power consumption, and it comes from myriad sources including Biogas, Biomass, Geothermal, Small-hydro, Solar and Wind.
Dell and Cisco are two other tech giants that make the Top 10. Dell uses some 431 million kilowatt hours annually of renewable energy, while Cisco uses about 401 million. The Dell number is interesting, because according to the EPA, the company actually gets 129 percent of its power needs from renewable sources. All this means, really, is that it sources more renewable energy than it actually needs.
Several other interesting tidbits about the Top 10:
- There are two Texas cities that make it (Houston and Dallas)
- The No. 2 (Kohl's Department Stores) and No 3. (Whole Foods) companies apparently source ALL of their energy from renewable sources.
- More than one-quarter of the companies that are on this list have increased their green power purchases since the last ranking was done back in April
- Two other major technology players are among the Top 50: Motorola and Sprint Nextel