According to th
e EPA, Intel has purchased more than 2.5 billion kWh of green electricity (biomass, geothermal, small hydro, solar, wind) , which not only covers 88% of the company's electricity need, but makes Intel by far the largest green energy buyer in the U.S. The EPA said that the acquired green power is equivalent to avoiding CO2 emissions from 218,000 American homes.
However, there are other companies that use green electricity only, even if they do not buy as much green energy as Intel. Those companies include Kohl's (1.42 billion kWh), Whole Foods Market (817 million kWh) and HSBC North America (300 million kWh). HSBC is indicated to have purchased 112% of its energy need on the green market.
Collectively, the top 50 partner organizations of the Green Power Partnership are using more than 13.5 billion kWh of green power annually, equivalent to the CO2 produced from the electricity use of more than 1.1 million average American homes, the EPA said. Other tech companies on the list include Cisco (270 million kWh, 29% of corporate energy coverage), Motorola (119 million kWh, 32%), Dell (114 million kWh, 28%), AMD (74 million kWh, 102%), Applied materials (35 million kWh, 16%), Freescale (13 million kWh, 3%), Apple (12 million kWh, 98%), IBM (10 million kWh, 10%), Oracle (5.4 million kWh, 6%), and Yahoo (1.6 million kWh, 28%).