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Environment & Science

Intel Corp is America’s biggest green power consumer, but Walmart is coming up fast



K.Costin Photography/flickr (cc by-nc-sa)

The Environmental Protection Agency has released the latest updates on America’s biggest consumers of green power, and computer chip producer Intel Corp comes in at Number 1.

A full 88% of the electricity consumed by Intel is green, purchased from wind and solar farms. All told, they ate up more than 2.5 billion kilowatt hours of both over last year.

Kohl’s, Walmart, Whole Foods Markets and Johnson & Johnson round out the top 5, with Walmart moving from 15th to 3rd place on the strength of their green power purchases in California and Texas alone (and pushing Whole Foods down to fourth place).

Walmart has plans to add solar panels to another 130 California stores by the end of 2013, so expect their ranking to move in higher in the following years.