Truckee Meadows Community College Receives Green Power Leadership Award From EPA

TMCC Honored for Initiatives to Address Climate Change

Truckee Meadows Community College (TMCC) has received a 2023 Green Power Leadership Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). For more than 20 years, EPA’s annual Green Power Leadership Awards have recognized America’s leading green power users for their commitment to using renewable electricity and advancing the nation’s green power market. EPA presented TMCC with a Green Power Leadership Award at the 2023 Renewable Energy Markets Conference on September 19, 2023.

EPA recognizes Green Power Partners like TMCC with a Green Power Leadership Award for outstanding clean energy initiatives and impact on the green power market. TMCC is currently using nearly 8 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power annually, which is enough to meet 100 percent of the college’s overall electricity use. By choosing green power, TMCC is taking action against climate change and towards a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable energy future.

“It takes the entire team of our incredible faculty and staff to achieve this success, and we are proud to be an example of the positive choice clean energy can make in protecting our futures and our planet,” said TMCC President Dr. Karin Hilgersom. “We are ecstatic to be recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for our efforts in cultivating a greener, environmentally friendly college that our community can be proud of.”

According to the EPA, TMCC’s current green power use of nearly 8 million kWh is equivalent to the electricity use of more than 700 average American homes annually.

Since 2019, TMCC has matched 100% of its electricity load service with green power. It procures green power through a renewable energy agreement, the NV GreenEnergy Rider Tariff, where NV Energy purchases the energy, capacity, Portfolio Energy Credits, and renewable energy certificates from a solar PV facility in Clark County, Nevada.

The college installed four on-site solar arrays and two wind turbines, which are also used as an educational tool to provide hands-on training in the college’s Applied Technologies architecture and renewable energy programs. TMCC conducts infrared thermographic evaluations of their solar arrays by utilizing drones.

TMCC educates students about the benefits of green power by offering courses on environmental science which integrate concepts of renewable energy and sustainability into class curricula. In 2022-23, TMCC declared a college-wide theme: “Year of Sustainability,” encouraging sustainable concepts to be used in wider areas of in-classroom education, and also hosted a series of events educating students about their commitment to green power.

Green power is electricity generated from environmentally preferable renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, biogas, eligible biomass, and low-impact hydro. Using green power helps advance the American green power market, which accelerates the development of these resources in the United States.

About Truckee Meadows Community College

Truckee Meadows Community College is a comprehensive community college located in Reno, Nev., and is part of the Nevada System of Higher Education. With four college sites and more than 20 community locations, TMCC serves more than 16,000 students each year in state-supported programs and another 9,000 students in non-credit workforce development classes. For more information, please go to www.tmcc.edu.

About EPA’s Green Power Partnership

The Green Power Partnership is a voluntary program that helps increase green power use among U.S. organizations to advance the American market for green power and development of those sources as a way to reduce air pollution and other environmental impacts associated with electricity use. In 2021, the Partnership had more than 700 Partners voluntarily using more than 85 billion kilowatt-hours of green power annually. Partners include a wide variety of leading organizations such as Fortune 500® companies; small and medium sized businesses; local, state, and federal governments; and colleges and universities. For additional information, please visit www.epa.gov/greenpower.

About the Green Power Leadership Awards

EPA co-sponsors the annual Green Power Leadership Awards with the Center for Resource Solutions. For more than 20 years, the Green Power Leadership Awards have allowed EPA to recognize winners that demonstrate leadership in and impact on the green power marketplace. Through these awards, EPA recognizes exceptional achievements among Green Power Partners who distinguish themselves through green power procurement, community impact, innovation, communication, transparency, and overall influence on the green power market. The ceremony takes place at the Renewable Energy Markets Conference. This year’s five recipients are using more than 1.5 billion kWh of green power—enough to power nearly 145,000 average American homes for a year. For additional information please visit www.epa.gov/greenpower/green-power-leadership-awards.