NEWBURY – It’s been serving customers since 1840 and has a look straight out of an historic New England
postcard, but the Newbury Village Store has moved to the cutting edge of renewable energy.

Owners Maggie and Gary Hatch recently signed the store up for CVPS Cow Power™, buying half their electricity through the nation’s first cow-to-consumer renewable electricity program.

“The whole philosophy of our store is to make our community a better place to live, and to do the right thing,”
Maggie Hatch says by way of explanation. “Given the environmental challenges we face and our hopes for the
future, Cow Power is the perfect fit. We want to do what we can to make the Earth a better place for our kids.”

The Newbury Village store consumed over 100,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity last year, making it the largest Cow Power customer in the Northeast Kingdom. Cow Power produced to serve half the store’s load is expected to have an environmental impact equivalent to removing 146 metric tons of CO2 from the air annually. That’s akin to removing 31 cars (burning 16,500 gallons of gasoline) from the highway.

The impressive Greek Revival Newbury Village Store is at the center of the town of 2,000 people, adjacent to the Post Office, the local school and a church, right across from the town green. The Hatches plan to promote CVPS Cow Power with interior signage.

“The store really is a focal point for the community, and we see our enrollment in CVPS Cow Power™ as a logical step in supporting community in the larger sense,” Gary Hatch said. “Through our participation, we want to support renewable energy, the environment and farming, and encourage others to enroll.”

CVPS Cow Power™ is the nation’s only manure-based renewable energy program linking consumers and farmers.
CVPS customers can choose to receive all, half or a quarter of their electrical energy through Cow Power, and pay a premium of 4 cents per kilowatt hour, which goes to participating farm-producers, to purchase renewable energy credits when enough farm energy isn’t available, or to the CVPS Renewable Development Fund. The fund provides grants to farm owners to develop on-farm generation. Farm-producers are also paid 95 percent of the market price for the energy sold to CVPS.

The program was designed to help farmers improve manure management while providing new financial opportunities to Vermont dairy producers. Manure and other farm waste are held in a sealed concrete tank at the same temperature as a cow’s stomach, 101 degrees. Bacteria digest the volatile components, creating methane and killing pathogens and weed seeds. The methane, which is roughly 20 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere, fuels an engine/generator.

Blue Spruce Farm in Bridport was the first CVPS Cow Power™ producer, starting in January 2005. Four other farms in are in the process of developing generators and are expected on-line late this year or early in 2007. The four farms, which received grants totaling more than $660,000 from the CVPS Renewable Development Fund to help get them started, include:

- Green Mountain Dairy Farm in Sheldon, owned by Brian and Bill Rowell, with 1,250 cows expected to produce 1.7 million kilowatt-hours per year;

- Montagne Farms in St. Albans, two farms owned by Dave Montagne, with 1,200 cows expected to produce 1.7 million kilowatt-hours of energy per year;

- Newmont Farms LLC in Fairlee, owned by Walter and Margaret Gladstone, with 1,020 cows expected to produce 1.4 million kilowatt-hours per year;

- and Deer Flats Farm in West Pawlet, owned by Dick and Rich Hulett, who plan to use surplus crops and 210 cows to produce 3.6 million kilowatt-hours per year.

CVPS President Bob Young said customer support is critical to the success of Cow Power farm producers. “Without customers like the Newbury Village Store, Cow Power would be just an interesting idea,” Young said. “Thanks to customer support, it can be an economic engine for farms while improving the environment and expanding our renewable energy supply.”

Contact: Steve Costello (802) 747-5427 For Immediate Release: June 15, 2006