CHARLOTTE — The Diocese of Charlotte wants to lead by example.
Protecting the planet – this Earth Day and year ’round – is important and a way to follow Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home.”
“Laudato Si’” is the appeal from Pope Francis addressed to “every person living on this planet” for an inclusive dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our world.
One of the ways the diocese wants to lead by example is through its solar panel project on the roof of the Diocesan Pastoral Center, said Anthony Morlando, diocesan properties director.
The 100-kilowatt solar array on the roof of the Pastoral Center has been up and running since mid-March.
“It’s something we’re hopeful that other church locations and schools will want to replicate,” Morlando said, “to be responsible citizens of the earth.”
The uptown Charlotte building installed rooftop solar panel arrays to save a significant amount on energy costs last fall. In 2015, St. Eugene Church in Asheville was the first to install a 46-kilowatt solar panel array on its roof, aiming to cover nearly 20 percent of the church’s annual energy usage.
St. Gabriel Church in Charlotte has also just installed a 230-kilowatt array on the roof of St. Gabriel Parish Center/School. It will be up and running soon.
St. Gabriel Parish building committee member Tim Dixon, who serves as the parish’s project manager, said the 622 solar panels are projected to produce approximately 345,000 kilowatt-hours per year – about 40 percent of the parish center/elementary school’s annual energy consumption. The parish anticipates saving $25,000 a year on its energy costs.
While the installation is complete, the solar panels haven’t been energized yet, Dixon said.
The 272 solar panels on the roof of the Pastoral Center are projected to cut the building’s energy costs by 20 percent, Morlando said.
The $150,000 solar panel project at the Pastoral Center was funded in part through a $75,000 Duke Energy grant, and diocesan leaders expect the panels to pay for themselves within eight years. The panels have a 25-year lifespan before they will need to be replaced.
Alternative energy isn’t just better environmental stewardship, it’s good stewardship in general, Morlando and others say. The savings on a parish’s or school’s energy bills is “opportunity revenue.”
The Pastoral Center’s solar panels are performing as designed, Morlando said.
“In these uncertain times, the diocese is operating without a hitch,” he said. “These solar panels are doing the same thing. They are working, even though we’re not there. They are generating energy, even though we’re not there.”
In the past month, 26,000 pounds of carbon emissions were not emitted into the atmosphere because of the energy saved through these solar panels, he estimated.
— Kimberly Bender, Online reporter
