Wheelabrator Technologies Inc. | A Waste Management Company

Wheelabrator wins contracts from the federal government

Hampton, NH, February 15, 2005 - NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas and the U.S. Coast Guard Yard in Washington, DC will purchase renewable energy credits (REC) from Wheelabrator’s waste-to-energy plant in North Broward, Florida.

Wheelabrator is the first waste-to-energy company to be awarded the contracts from the federal government through a competitive bidding process. The total purchase is 80,550 megawatt-hours over two years. In addition, Wheelabrator has made REC sales from its Massachusetts waste-to-energy plants to retail electric companies to enable them to meet their Connecticut renewable energy obligations.

“These contracts set an important precedent for us,” according to J. Drennan Lowell, Wheelabrator’s President. “For the first time, not only are we being paid for the RECs, but we also are receiving positive publicity from two prominent federal agencies who are affirming that trash is renewable, that we run clean facilities, and we generate clean energy.”

In addition to the federal government, some states require utilities to purchase a percentage of their power from renewable energy sources. “We’re working with state legislatures around the country to introduce bills that would require renewable portfolio standards that include waste-to-energy,” Lowell says.

Renewable Energy Credits Defined
Renewable energy credits, or RECs, were created when states passed laws that require utilities to purchase part of their electricity from renewable energy sources. In 1990, then President Clinton issued a policy mandating that all federal government departments and agencies buy a certain percentage of their electricity from renewable sources such as solar, wind, biomass, municipal solid waste and landfill gas.

To meet this executive order, federal agencies were allowed to get credit for purchasing renewable energy by buying credits from these generators rather than the actual power.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 re-affirmed the federal government's commitment to purchase renewable energy and increased the amount of energy that agencies are required to purchase from renewable energy sources.

One renewable energy credit represents one megawatt-hour of renewable energy.

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