Promoting Clean Energy

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The DowntownDC BID’s SAM headquarters building, located at 1229 New York Avenue, and home to nearly 100 Safety/Hospitality and Maintenance employees, known as SAMs, is switching to wind power. The move will reduce costs and dependency on carbon-based fuels that harm the environment. Washington Gas Energy Services (WGES) will provide 100% CleanSteps(SM) WindPower to the Downtown SAM building from wind farms beginning this month.

“Improving sustainability through operational practices and the physical plant are important steps in our Greening Downtown DC initiative, which supports the city’s efforts to become one of the world’s most sustainable cities,” said Richard H. Bradley, the DowntownDC BID’s executive director. Wind power will save the BID more than $3,000 over two years and generate interest among other BID-based businesses and buildings interested in purchasing electricity generated by green resources.

The BID works with local and federal agencies to promote sustainability and is registered as a Green Power Partner under the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Green Power Partnership, a voluntary program that supports organizations looking to procure electricity produced from a subset of renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and low-impact hydro. EPA has more than five dozen partners in DC, including the DC government and several federal agencies.

Other Green Power Partners in Downtown include the American Chemical Society (1155 16th Street); Beveridge & Diamond, PC (1350 I Street); Hyatt Regency Washington (400 New Jersey Avenue); Inter-American Development Bank (1300 New York Avenue); National Press Club (529 14th Street); Saxby’s Coffee (1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, 1331 Pennsylvania Avenue, 1000 Vermont Avenue); US Department of Veteran Affairs (810 Vermont Avenue); and the Internal Revenue Service (1111 Constitution Avenue).