The Philadelphia Phillies are still trying to close out the World Series, but the team has already been declared winners off the field. The National League Champions were among the winners cited in the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2008 Green Power Leadership Awards. The announcement was made at the the National Renewable Energy Marketing Conference in Denver, Colo.

EPA’s Green Power Partnership is a voluntary program helping to increase the use of green power among leading U.S. organizations. The program encourages organizations to purchase green power as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with conventional electricity use. The EPA says the program has hundreds of partner organizations buying billions of kilowatt-hours of green power annually.

According to the EPA, the Philadelphia Phillies are the first Major League Baseball team to join the Green Power Partnership. The baseball club buys 20 million kilowatt-hours annually from wind and biomass resources, enough to power 100 percent of the annual electricity use for Citizens Bank Park.

Here is the complete list of the 2008 EPA Green Power Purchaser Award winners:

On-Site Generation

• Kohl’s Department Stores
• Lundberg Family Farms

Green Power Purchasing

• City of Houston, Texas
• The Estee Lauder Companies, Inc.
• ING
• Merritt 7 Venture, LLC
• Oregon State University
• PepsiCo, Inc.
• The Philadelphia Phillies
• Powdr Resorts
• U.S. Air Force

Green Power Partner of the Year

• Bellingham, Washington Community
• Cisco Systems, Inc.
• Intel Corporation
• University of Pennsylvania
• WhiteWave Foods Company

DOE Green Power Supplier Awards

New Green Power Program or Company

• AmerenUE

Small Residential/Commercial Green Power Program or Supplier of the Year

• City of Palo Alto Utilities

Large Commercial/Institutional Green Power Program or Supplier of the Year

• 3Degrees
• Sterling Planet

CRS Market Development Awards

Green Power Beacon Award

• Portland General Electric
• Honorable Mention: Detroit Edison

Green Power Pilot Award

• Energy Action Coalition
• Honorable Mention: Green Mountain Energy

Green Power Pioneer

• Dr. Jan Hamrin

Related link:

• The Green Power Network –  U.S. government web site provides green power market information

The 2008 Green Power Leadership Awards were presented in conjunction with the National Renewable Energy Marketing Conference, held October 26-29 in Denver, Colorado.

Large Commercial/Institutional Green Power Program or Supplier of the Year

3Degrees continues to support a large, high-quality portfolio of renewable energy projects in 23 states from wind, solar, landfill gas and biomass sources, including many with ten-year Renewable Energy Certificate offtake arrangements. 3Degrees serves more than 200 U.S. and international business customers, as well as five utilities in three states (California, Oregon and Missouri) for its highly successful turnkey utility green pricing partnerships. The company’s annual sales recently reached 4 billion kilowatt hours, and it serves 6 of the top 15 corporate purchases nationally.

3Degrees works closely with corporate customers to engage their diverse stakeholders, including employees, end-use customers and companies in the supply chain. 3Degrees utilizes a wide range of unique customer support tactics, including a comprehensive online toolkit for customers, providing them with a variety of templates for communications and educational materials.

3Degrees’ partnerships with utility green pricing programs deploy a “wrap around the community” approach, which involves community-based awareness building, as well as direct enrollment tactics and community outreach. This approach yielded an average 7.5 percent participation rate across all of 3Degrees’ diverse set of partnerships, more than 4 times the national average for green pricing programs. By implementing community challenges in conjunction with its utility partners, 3Degrees has increased residential participation in several utility programs by an average of 50 percent.

3Degrees’ efforts in building the market for renewable energy have resulted in the company currently supporting over 1.1 Gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity.