AmerenUE announced today that Urban Eats Cafe has agreed to support the development of new renewable energy sources via the purchase of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) through UE’s Pure Power® program.
Urban Eats Cafe’s commitment to this voluntary program will help prevent approximately 35 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), a leading greenhouse gas, from entering the atmosphere each year. This is equal to the CO2 reduction provided by taking five cars off the road for a year.*
Pure Power is UE’s voluntary renewable energy program and the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2008 New Green Power Program of the Year Award Winner. It gives residential customers the option to add an extra 1.5 cents/kilowatthour to their monthly bills, offsetting 100 percent of their energy usage with clean, renewable energy. Commercial and industrial customers, like Urban Eats Cafe, participate by buying “blocks” of Pure Power, paying an additional $15 a month for each 1,000 kilowatt-hours used. Residential customers can also participate by buying blocks of Pure Power. Pure Power funds are then used to purchase Renewable Energy Certificates from local Green-e® Energy-certified wind farms and other types of renewable energy projects.
Urban Eats Cafe’s annual purchase of 36 blocks of Pure Power makes it a UE Pure Power Leader--a designation reserved for companies, governments or other large users of electricity who agree offset at least 3 percent of their energy usage through Pure Power purchases.
Caya Aufiero, Owner of Urban Eats Cafe, said, “We were intrigued when we heard about AmerenUE’s Pure Power program, but thought our company might be too small to participate. Our Café tries to be socially responsible and relevant to our community, consciously making a living by doing good business in a way that brings a benefit to society. We were amazed to see how easy and affordable it was for us to make a difference in our energy use, just as we do in other areas of our business. It’s really within the average person’s reach!”
For more information about AmerenUE’s Pure Power program, please visit www.ameren.com/purepower or contact Cindy Bambini at 314.480.3554. UE’s Pure Power program is Green-e Energy Certified by the not-for-profit Center for Resource Solutions. Green-e is the leading renewable energy certification and verification program in the U.S.
AmerenUE is a subsidiary of St. Louis-based Ameren Corporation. The Ameren companies serve 2.4 million electric customers and nearly one million natural gas customers in a 64,000-square-mile area of Missouri and Illinois.
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CONTACT: Tim Fox, 314.554.4335, of AmerenUE
* Source: http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/pubs/calcmeth.htm