It's not Orange v Garnet...rather everyone comes together to go Green!

At 7:45 on Saturday night, football fans across South Carolina will be watching (live or on TV) the annual battle for bragging rights, as action kicks off in the annual Palmetto Bowl. Now in its 109^th running, the game pits this year’s host University of South Carolina Gamecocks against their rival Clemson University Tigers.

Fans bleed garnet and black, or orange and purple, and for the second year in a row there’ll be plenty of green to cheer about – nomatter which side of the stadium they’re on.

According to the Santee Cooper blog, USC has teamed up with Santee Cooper to ensure that all the electricity needs for the game will be met with Santee Cooper Green Power. All of the instant replays and other information played on the jumbotron, all of the announcements broadcast throughout the stadium, all of the lights shining down on the field and all of the power used throughout Williams-Brice Stadium will come from the clean, renewable, South Carolina resources that Santee Cooper uses to generate its Green Power.

In other words, no matter who wins the game Saturday, we’re all environmental winners.

As University of South Carolina University President Harris Pastides put it, “Powering such a high-energy game with in-state renewable resources is a victory we can all celebrate. I’m all for being green, along with being garnet and black, of course.”

Santee Cooper celebrated its 10^th year generating Green Power earlier this year, noting the September 2001 launch of its first Green Power Generating Station in Horry County.  South Carolina’s leader in generating renewable energy, Santee Cooper now generates 28 MWs at landfill biogas, wind and solar stations around South Carolina.

It’s been a powerful decade, really. Santee Cooper has generated approximately 580,000 megawatt-hours of Green Power, and customers have bought 163,559 MWhs of that – enough to power roughly 15,000 average homes for a year. Santee Cooper sells Green Power for as little as $3 per 100 kWhs a month, and all of that money is reinvested in new renewable energy projects in the state. Which means that whether you’re buying Green Power for your home or to light up a football field on Thanksgiving Weekend, you’re investing in a sustainable future.

With hundreds of thousands of fans across the state and more than a century of games behind it, the Palmetto Bowl is steeped in tradition. Santee Cooper is proud of our role in carrying the ball forward.