GSA’s Northeast and Caribbean Region’s green power procurements are precedent setting, as they far exceed the Federal Government’s goal of 2.5 percent of facilities electricity requirements coming from green energy sources by FY 2005. The 75 million kilowatt (kWh) of green power that GSA is buying for its own buildings in New York and New Jersey equals 33 percent of GSA’s regional electricity requirements or 13 times more than Executive Order 13123 requires.
Because of its extremely large power requirements GSA has successfully leveraged its huge buying power by aggregating purchases of green power for other Federal agencies and non-Federal agencies. The successful results from this large procurement create an even lower rate for green electricity than GSA is currently paying for non-green electricity. Effective June 2004 GSA will pay only 10.66 cents per kWh for the same amount of electricity generated from green energy sources. GSA is therefore saving over $51,000 per year and is also purchasing 100 percent renewable power.
GSA also requires companies selling green power to GSA and its customers to submit annual reconciliation reports to verify that the procurement of green power is based on Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), New Jersey and New York State Public Service Commission standards. The practice of buying green power is clearly beneficial, but not every Federal agency has sufficient internal resources to solicit and award green power contracts.
As GSA acquires more experience in buying green power the prices for that commodity will continue to decline. An example of the price decline for 100 percent green power has occurred at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City, the third largest Federal Building in the nation. GSA has signed a contract for green power at 10.66 cents per kWh as opposed to 10.8 cents per kWh for non-green power. This contract truly demonstrates how GSA adopts to ever changing energy market conditions.
For more information, contact Mr. Brian K. Magden at (212) 264-0591 or via e-mail at brian.magden@gsa.gov
