Western has completed the purchase of its first 10,000 renewable energy certificates from its new provider, the EarthEra Renewable Energy trust, a part of NextEra Energy Resources.

Western buys the certificates, which support "green" energy, to offset greenhouse gases emitted from its electrical use.

In total, Western will purchase 40,000 certificates, which are optional, in 2009, totaling $140,000. The certificates are paid for through Western’s $7 Renewable Green Energy Student Fee, one of the many fees of a full-time student.

The certificates represent the difference in the cost of producing renewable energy versus the cost of traditional energy production, like coal, said Ron Bailey, operations support manager at Western.

Each certificate equates to one megawatt-hour of electricity produced. While Western will continue to purchase all of its electricity from Puget Sound Energy, they will spend an additional amount of money in certificates to support EarthEra's Endeavor Wind Farm in Iowa.

For EarthEra, the excess cost for one certificate, or one megawatt-hour of electricity produced is $3.50, Bailey said. Previously, Western was paying PSE $6 for certificates, he said.  

By supporting a wind farm in Iowa, Western is chipping away at the overall production of non-renewable energy. Producing wind power creates a lower demand for coal, which is the main energy generator used in Iowa, Bailey said.

Bailey said Iowa is in greater need for green energy production than Washington because the Pacific Northwest predominately uses hydropower, which produces significantly less greenhouse gas than coal.

“The general belief within the scientific community is that greenhouse gases cause climate change, and it is necessary to take steps to reduce [the gases] in order to stop the change,” said Rose Woofenden, president of Students for Renewable Energy.

Influencing a region of the United States in need of cleaner production was one of the criteria considered by a panel made up of Students for Renewable Energy, faculty and staff when they evaluated the nine possible certificate providers, Bailey said.

The panel used a formula developed by Western economics professor Dan Hagen to analyze the companies. It determined that EarthEra had the greatest greenhouse gas offset while costing $100,000 less than PSE, Bailey said.  

“The formula is unique to Western and unique to the whole process,” Bailey said. “We came out with a method to purchase [certificates] based on their environmental attributes.”

The local environmental impact, negative or positive, created by the facility, was another determining factor. A wind farm in the middle of a farmer’s field will have a different environmental impact than a wind farm in the middle of a city, Bailey said.

Finally, the panel wanted to support “additionality,” which means Western’s financial support will help the certificate provider go beyond its normal development and create more green energy through wind or solar power, he said.

Not only was the decision to use EarthEra unanimous, Woofenden said she was pleased with the process as a whole and hopes to improve the process further over the years.  Students had a say in nearly 60 percent of the decision.

“They came to us and said, ‘You’re the students, how would you like to do things?’” Woofenden said. “This is our future, our money, and they were here to assist us, which we really appreciated.”

Many schools in the U.S. buy certificates to offset their environmental impacts, said Blaine Collison, director of Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Challenge.
Holding the most certificates out of the nine schools in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, the EPA has recognized Western as an individual conference champion in its 2008-09 College and University Green Power Challenge.

The challenge uses athletic conferences as a means of comparison because the conferences usually contain colleges of similar size, Collison said.     
It highlights pockets of leadership to encourage other schools to join in and help create more demand for green energy, he said.

“We’re trying to leverage the demand side of the market in order to stimulate the supply side,” Collison said. “We want to show producers that people care about where their energy comes from.”    

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