In May 2009, Ellie Whitney, chair, Green Sanctuary Committee, reported in Skylights about our Solar Panels:

Solar Panels are Up and Creating Renewable Energy on Our Roofs At last, we have solar power at UUCP! Jersey Solar, LLC, a solar installer that has been in business since 1976, installed our photovoltaic (PV) modules earlier this spring. They were connected and feeding energy both to us and to the public utility by early February.

The modules convert sunshine into electricity. UUCP gets the first use; if more electricity is produced than we need, the extra electricity flows to the grid to help meet the electricity needs of other utility customers. We are, in effect, a “generator,” on a par with (albeit smaller than) the power plants that use coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy. When UUCP sends our solar electricity to the “grid,” the utility purchases less fossil-fuel based electricity.

The result is less air pollution, global warming gas, and mercury in our water bodies.

The State of New Jersey has committed publicly, and in regulation, to generating 20 percent of its total electric needs from renewable energy sources by the year 2020. Most importantly, the state also has committed to generating 2 percent of all electricity from solar energy.

The PV system helps the congregation in three main ways. First, it produces clean, renewable energy. That reason alone makes it the right choice.

Second, about 40 percent of our electrical demand is now being met by the sun. Also, we are paid, through Clean Power Markets, for any extra electricity we put back into the grid. As a result, we should see significantly lower utility bills from now on (we think we will pay about $5,000 less each year).

Finally, the utility also pays us for our “green tags,” also known as Solar Renewable Energy Credits, or SRECs.

This solar incentive system, which the state has created to encourage the use of solar power, is paid by the utilities which are required to buy the SRECs by the State’s Clean Energy Program.

We earn one green tag for each 1,000 kilowatt hours (1 megawatt hour) we produce.

In our first six weeks of operation we generated 3,000 kilowatt hours. This means our PV system has earned us three green tags so far.

Today each tag is worth between $400 and $600 per SREC on the market. We expect to earn about 30 green tags a year. This means we will likely have more than $20,000 in income each year (not to mention lower utility bills)! Between the lower utility bills and the SRECs, our PV system will be paid off in less than five years! With more and more dire effects of global warming looming ever closer, our federal government is offering incentives for others to do what we have done.

Owners of residences who install PV systems on their roofs are receiving a 30 percent tax credit on their federal income taxes. In addition, the state of New Jersey offers rebates and SRECs for PV systems on homes. Businesses, non-profits, and municipal/public/ school buildings also have incentives.

Do join us in the Twenty-First Century, the beginning of the Energy- Climate Era. Solar power is benign, silent, and non-polluting and will help make our world a safer place for our children and fellow creatures on the earth.

We hope that other congregations throughout the region will follow the leadership of UUCP and install PV systems to send the message that the time for change has arrived.

~Ellie Whitney, chair, Green Sanctuary Committee, in consultation with Tom Prusa and Dolores Phillips