Green energy: Tech companies are always boasting about their green energy purchases, solar or wind farms, and other climate-related achievements, but now Honda wants to snag some of the spotlight for itself. In a blog post published today by Honda's Ryan Harty, the company revealed its plans to offset a whopping 60 percent of its US-based power usage with clean alternatives.

To accomplish this goal, Honda will be participating in two virtual power purchase agreements (VPAAs). These agreements will lead to Honda purchasing clean, renewable energy from a 120MW wind farm in Oklahoma, and a 200MW solar farm in Texas. These farms, combined with Honda's own renewable energy projects, will help to offset the carmaker's US-based carbon footprint by a significant margin.

While this does not account for all of Honda's US operations, the company does say that those two farms will offset "100 percent" of all fossil fuel-powered electricity it uses in its Ohio, Alabama, and Indiana-based auto plants.

"The clean energy does not go directly to Honda's auto plants; instead, it goes into the electricity supply where the clean power is generated,"

To be clear, Honda will not actually be receiving this power directly. "The clean energy does not go directly to Honda's auto plants; instead, it goes into the electricity supply where the clean power is generated," Harty explains. "Honda's purchase of renewable energy adds more clean energy into the nation's electricity grid."

Combined, the two farms in question will deliver roughly 1,012,000MWh to this grid on an annual basis. The Oklahoma wind farm agreement takes effect during the holiday season of 2020, and Honda will begin purchasing power from the Texas solar facility in the fall of 2021.

Honda acknowledges that the use of VPAAs is not the perfect way to reduce its carbon footprint. "Ideally, we would purchase 100% renewable energy from our local utility, but that is not currently possible and we simply can't wait," Harty writes. "By employing VPPAs, we are able to meet our goals today."

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