The Church of England is looking to achieve a reduction in carbon emissions of 42% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. One way of achieving this would be to install solar panels on more of their churches especially when you consider that the roofs of these places of worship tend, in the main, to be higher than a house. This provides them with greater access to sunlight as the solar panels are less likely to be blocked by trees.
St John the Evangelist Church in Old Trafford, Manchester had a number of solar panels installed on its roof in 2012 and they appear to be proving a success. It was the first Anglican Church within the Greater Manchester area to take this action.
It cost £15,000 to install the 15 solar panels. The church has been so impressed with the results that it is hoped that it will have a further 30 solar panels installed on the roof. The panels have generated enough electricity to provide lighting all through the year for the local community centre as well as selling electricity to the National Grid.
Apparently, the local community, which included some people that do not even go to church, invested in the scheme and have become shareholders. Some funds from the solar photovoltaic panel project are distributed to shareholders and some monies go to local causes.
This sounds like an excellent community project that is benefiting many people as well as reducing the carbon footprint and therefore helping the environment.
There are in excess of 16,000 Anglican churches in England and about another 20,000 churches from several other denominations. Collectively, many of these should surely be able to play a significant part in helping the UK achieve its extremely challenging carbon emission and renewable energy targets by 2020.
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