For more than 75 years, WTU Retail Energy and its predecessors have proudly served the families and businesses of this community. We believe in building and maintaining strong connections with the people and communities we serve. As your energy partner, we are committed to bringing you reliable, economical, and customer-focused service. As your neighbor, we are dedicated to seeing our West Texas communities thrive.
So how do we do that, and why? Well, the ‘why’ is easy…this is our community as well. We live and work here. Charitable community involvement is a core part of who we are as a company, and we support and participate in a number of programs that benefit the regions in which we operate, live, and work. From Abilene to San Angelo to Alpine, we are involved and a proud member of the community. We want a healthy economic and environmental climate…we want to take care of our home.
So, how do we accomplish these goals? Through persistence, dedication, and innovation. WTU and its Texas affiliates have invested millions of dollars into our Texas markets. We spend a significant amount of those resources helping you to better understand information necessary to implement the most efficient and cost-saving energy practices possible. We also are committed to supporting energy efficient services. In fact, we have long-term renewable power purchase agreements under which we purchase all the energy and renewable energy credits from five major wind farms right here in Texas. Their total capacity of approximately 814 megawatts and is enough to power nearly 156,000 homes. We thus help our customers avoid the emission of more than 2.6 billion pounds of carbon dioxide annually created by Texas system electric generation.
WTU Retail Energy is part of the Direct Energy family of companies, which serves more than five million customers throughout the United States and Canada and is the third largest competitive electricity provider in Texas. We employ 1,500 of your Texas friends and neighbors, and our family of companies owns three power plants in this great state: the Frontera Energy Center in Mission, the Bastrop Energy Center in Austin, and the Paris Energy Center in Paris. Our vast network of resources allows us to maximize efficiencies by sharing processes, knowledge and information across all markets. We are able to bring you the benefits of a strong global business, while still valuing and maintaining our local heritage and commitment to customer service.
We sincerely appreciate your business and hope to stand beside you for many years to come.