For More Information Contact:
Lance Robertson, 984-4716
Eugene Water & Electric Board

Feb. 13, 2008

EWEB helps keep Eugene near top of “green city” list

Eugene finished in the top five on a recent “green cities” list largely due to the renewable wind, solar, biomass and hydroelectric power provided to the city’s residents by the Eugene Water & Electric Board.

In fact, Eugene was the only city on Popular Science magazine’s green cities list to receive a perfect score of 10 in the “electricity” category. That high score propelled Eugene to No. 5 on the magazine’s list of green cities across the United States. Portland, which was No. 1 on the list, received an “electricity” category score of 7.1.

The magazine cited Eugene’s sources of clean energy as the reason for its high ranking. EWEB provides the city with electricity, most of it hydroelectric power, which doesn’t produce any greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. More than 95 percent of the electricity used by Eugene residents is free from fossil fuels.

EWEB has been aggressive in building and acquiring wind energy, and the utility also gets power from a biomass energy generation project and from solar energy that it purchases from homes and businesses that install photovoltaic panels on rooftops. EWEB also has signed a contract to purchase geothermal power from a generating facility being built in Idaho.

Felicity Fahy, the City of Eugene’s sustainability manager, told The Register-Guard that the Popular Science ranking is due to “the wonderful work EWEB and others are doing.”

Two years ago, Eugene topped the list of green cities in the Green Guide, a publication of National Geographic magazine. That list also cited EWEB’s renewable and carbon-free energy as the prime reason for the high ranking.