Kim Hornung-Marcy

January 03, 2022

How about setting a New Year’s resolution that will save your congregation money and save the earth?  Remember sunlight is free and can power a lot. Fun fact: The Sun hits the earth with more energy in a little over an hour than the entire human race uses in a year.
     
The National Interfaith Power and Light organization has a program that reduces costs for houses of worship going solar. The program helps you install correctly and owns the system the first 6 years so you can save up the energy bill savings to purchase it after six years.  https://www.interfaithpowerandlight.org/solar-congregations-and-resources/ 
     
Half of our New England states have state level Interfaith Power and Light groups that provide grants for both energy audits, and then help following through by making churches and parsonages greener with weatherization, heat pumps and solar power.  All Interfaith Power and Light state groups also work on education for congregations and advocacy at the state and national level to move us to being a greener country from a faith-based perspective.
  
Here are links for the State Interfaith Power and Light groups:
Connecticut: https://irejn.org/  Education and advocacy
Maine: http://meipl.org/  Education and Advocacy
Massachusetts: https://www.massipl.org/  Sliding scale energy audits, help with going green
New Hampshire: https://www.nhipl.org/  Grants for energy audits and for going green
Rhode Island: https://www.facebook.com/riinterfaith.powerlight/  Education and advocacy
Vermont: https://vtipl.org/  Grants for energy audits and help going green.

To read other columns by Rev. Hornung-Marcy, click on her name above.