Although the Big Ten is best known for its athletic and academic prowess, it’s now clear the conference is also a renewable energy powerhouse.
The Big Ten won the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2016-’17 Green Power Challenge, using the most renewable energy of any participating conference. UW-Madison was a key player in the victory.
The six participating Big Ten schools used a combined 437 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy, blowing out the 35 other conferences in the challenge. UW-Madison supplied about 70 million of those kilowatt-hours of green energy, adding up to 15 percent of the campus’ total energy use.
Of the Big Ten universities in the competition, UW-Madison ranked fourth in renewable energy use, beating out the Universities of Illinois and Iowa. Northwestern used the most green power in the Big Ten—about 122 million kilowatt-hours—making up a whopping 50 percent of the campus’ total energy use.
The competition is part of the Green Power Partnership, a voluntary EPA program that encourages the use of renewable energy sources. This year, 98 colleges and universities participated.
