Government agencies in Washington, D.C. will soon be powered 100% by renewable energy, according to a recent press release. Wind energy, provided by a Washington Gas Energy Services owned wind farm in Northern Virginia, will provide all of the electricity needs for the district’s government agencies. So far, only a one-year contract has been signed. Hopefully the district will remain committed to 100% renewables after it ends.

 
The D.C. government had already been receiving “50 percent of its electricity through wind power, enough to place it at the top of an Environmental Protection Agency ranking of cities that rely on clean energy sources,” the DCist notes. “The EPA’s Green Power Community Challenge compares cities—including local governments and participating private organizations—by the amounts of wind, solar, biomass, and other renewable resources they use. Through last December 12, D.C. recorded more than 1 billion kilowatt hours of clean-energy usage. Hillsboro, Ore. was a distant second at 678.6 million kilowatt hours.”

These are D.C.’s totals, though, not percentages, which tell a different story. According to the EPA, D.C. currently only receives 11.4% of its energy from renewable energy sources. More than many places, but there is still significant room for improvement.

In the recent press release, Washington Gas Energy Services stated that the new deal equates to “avoiding the consumption of 32,825,000 gallons of gasoline or taking 61,000 cars off the road for a year.”

As part of the deal, Washington Gas Energy Services will also create “online dashboards” for government facility managers, allowing them to easily monitor their energy usage.