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Cooperative celebrates 10 years of Green Power
October 21, 2011
Fairfield Electric Cooperative and Leslie M. Stover Middle School celebrated 10 years of Green Power in South Carolina on Thursday October 20th with a commemorative tree-planting to symbolize the sustainability and environmental benefits of renewable energy.
South Carolinians began powering their homes and business with Santee Cooper Green Power 10 years ago this fall, when the state’s first Green Power Generating Station went online at the Horry County Landfill. Today, Santee Cooper generates 28 megawatts of Green Power from generating stations fueled by landfill gas, solar and wind energy. In partnership with the state’s 20 electric cooperatives, that Green Power is distributed to the state’s electrical grid and offered for sale to customers in all 46 counties of South Carolina.
(Leslie M. Stover Middle School Principal Mike Garity, Kershaw County School District Superintendent Dr. Frank Morgan and Fairfield Electric Cooperative Vice President, Member & Strategic Services Douglas Payne are shown with students, from left, Aubray Weldon, Savannah Adams and Asia Allen.)
The cooperatives work with Santee Cooper to sell that Green Power at a premium to interested customers. Santee Cooper then reinvests 100 percent of those Green Power revenues in new renewable energy projects that benefit the state.
“The key to the Green Power programs success has been the participation of South Carolinians across our state. I want to thank our cooperative’s members who have made the decision to purchase Green Power and support the expansion of renewable energy in South Carolina” said Douglas Payne, Fairfield Electric Cooperative’s VP of Member and Strategic Services.
In the past decade, Santee Cooper has generated approximately 580,000 megawatt-hours of Green Power and sold 163,559 megawatt-hours of that to customers. Those Green Power sales are equivalent in today’s terms to the electricity needed to power nearly 15, 000 average American homes for one year or avoid the annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of more than 24,000 vehicles. (Source: EPA 2011: e-Grid Version 1.1 SEVC Subregion System Average). For more details, visit www.scgreenpower.com.
"Finding alternate sources of energy is becoming more important than ever. Green Power programs are taking the lead into finding and implementing those sources. It is our responsibility to educate our young people concerning the benefits and opportunities associated with Green Power" said Mike Garity, Leslie M. Stover Middle School Principal.
Fairfield Electric Cooperative and Leslie M. Stover Middle School have their own joint history generating Green Power, as partners in the Green Power Solar School, which was dedicated at the school’s campus in October 2008. The Green Power Solar School program is another partnership between the state’s electric cooperatives and Santee Cooper, designed to help teach middle school students about the opportunities and challenges associated with renewable energy.
Stover sixth grade students participated in the tree planting ceremony. Stover sixth graders use kits and energy notebooks donated by Fairfield Electric in their daily learning. In addition, they use solar power cars for demonstrations in class and the K-nex to make pulleys and simple machines. The students also track the solar power being generated by the solar panel in front of their school.
Fairfield Electric Cooperative is a member-owned, nonprofit electric cooperative that serves more than 25,000 accounts in Fairfield, Chester, Kershaw, Richland, and York counties. As a Touchstone Energy Partner, Fairfield joins over 600 electric co-ops nationwide to share the Touchstone Energy core values of integrity, accountability, innovation and commitment to community.
