Silicon Valley cities among top green-power users in U.S.

LOS ANGELES, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Two Silicon Valley cities have been named top green-power communities by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the amount of power each gets from renewable sources, a report said Wednesday.

Santa Clara was No. 2 at the EPA's list as the city's municipal electric utility, Silicon Valley Power, purchased 57 million kilowatt-hours, or 2 percent of its total electricity usage, from renewable sources last year, according to the Mercury News daily.

Palo Alto used more than 38 million kilowatt-hours to rank fifth on the list of 16 cities cited by the agency. Palo Alto gets 4 percent of its power from renewables.

Residential and business customers of Silicon Valley Power can voluntarily join its Green Power program, which provides 100 percent of power from renewables, such as solar, wind and geothermal, the report said.

The Green Power program costs an additional 1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. Among the 130 businesses and other entities that participate are big companies like Agilent Technologies, Applied Materials, and Yahoo.

Topping the list was Bellingham, Washington, which generated 81million kilowatt-hours, or 11 percent of its power, from greener sources.