God Would Approve Of Solar Panels

And at £80,000 for the installation he'd better.

From the Beccles and Bungay Journal

Church to install solar panels
27 November 2009
By DANHAYNES

PIONEERING Christians in Bungay are nearing completion on a £100,000 plan to make their church greener.

Emmanuel Church is undergoing a carbon reduction project in which solar panels will be installed on the roofs of the church halls to power the buildings.

Graham Gibbs, a member of the church who is heading the project, said he thought it would be the only church in the area to be using solar power.

"We're putting our wish to look after God's world practically," he said. "We're not just Christians sitting on our hands and praying about it. We're getting up, putting our money in, and doing something about it."

The money they're putting in is £80,000 - 50pc through a grant from the 'Low Carbon Building Program' - so, from you and me in other words.

Here's a snippet from the LCBP's 'About' page.

Launched on 1 April 2006, DECC's Low Carbon Buildings Programme Phase 1 replaces the previous DTI Clear Skies and Solar PV grant programmes. Open to householders, public, not for profit and commercial organisations across the UK (except the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man), the programme will demonstrate how energy efficiency and microgeneration can work hand in hand to create low carbon buildings.

So many programmes, so many phases, so difficult to keep track. Maybe that's the point.

The aims of the programme are stated as follows:

1.
To support a more holistic approach to reducing carbon emissions from buildings by demonstrating combinations of both energy efficiency measures and microgeneration products in a single development.

Holistic is good. I wouldn't want any of the projects I'm part-financing to not be holistic.

2.
To see demonstrated on a wider scale emerging microgeneration technologies (with a focus on building integrated technologies).

Integration as well. I'm a big believer that things should be integrated.

3.
To measure trends in costs of microgeneration technologies. It is expected that these costs should reduce over the lifetime of the programme against a 2005 baseline.

I should bloody hope so too! I mean, at £40G a pop we're just not going to cover much more of Norfolk, let alone the rest of the country.

4. To raise awareness by linking demonstration projects to a wider programme of activities including developing skills and communicating the potential of microgeneration to change the attitudes and behaviour of consumers. Larger scale projects will seek to engage the construction industry in project replication by demonstrating the business case for developing low carbon buildings.

All jolly good stuff I'm sure.

Anyway, back to our pioneering Becclesians and Bungayans.

The solar panels will be going on the roofs of the two church halls that lie at the back of the church in Rose Lane, but will also power the church. There will be 220 photovoltaic panels in total, which will replace some of the slates on the roofs. The church chose to pay around £20,000 extra to buy panels to replace the slates, rather than more conspicuous ones that lie on the top.

Well, you didn't consult me about that. I'm not so sure God would be bothered about that sort of thing either. In fact, I'm sure God would have gone for the CHEAPER option on account of him thinking about the rest of us who are part-funding it.

There will also be a digital display unit in one of the halls to communicate exactly how much power is being generated and how much is being saved, as well as totals for the year. The panels will produce 11.44kw, an average of 10,000 units of electricity each year.

Give me a call when it shows the input costs have equalled the savings. If I'm still alive then. /s

... church members are now being asked for interest free loans, while the search is on for grants. The solar panels alone will cost in the region of £80,000, but Mr Gibbs is confident they will be installed by March.