After becoming a member of the Georgia Interfaith Power and Light Solar-Wise Program in 2020, Trinity Episcopal Church in Statesboro is now the primary religion neighborhood within the state of Georgia to signal a photo voltaic power buy settlement in Georgia BRIGHT.
Last month, with the assistance of Georgia Interfaith Power and Light (GIPL), Trinity Episcopal Church in Statesboro, Georgia turned the primary religion neighborhood within the state to signal a photo voltaic power procurement settlement (SEPA) with Georgia EXPRESS—a first-of-its-kind photo voltaic program designed to assist low- to moderate-income communities lower electrical energy payments and carbon emissions.
The church entered the Solar-Wise program of GIPL in 2020, feeling an sincere name to be a greater steward of the Sacred Earth. They work with GIPL program workers to discover varied photo voltaic choices, with GIPL aiding with the preliminary evaluation and performing as a liaison to numerous installers. Most of the plans nevertheless are very costly. That is till Georgia BRIGHT got here alongside.
“When GIPL instructed us about Georgia BRIGHT and confirmed us how a lot we may save, I used to be skeptical at first,” stated Fr. Charles Todd, Rector of Trinity Episcopal. “It appears too good to be true. However, we talked to their group, bought to know the Georgia BRIGHT folks, noticed their mannequin, and came upon that we actually may go photo voltaic and lower your expenses. We could not be extra excited!”
Georgia BRIGHT is funded by a nationwide nonprofit Capital Good Fund. The Capital Good Fund leverages tax credit, grants, and bulk buy reductions to assist decrease the price of photo voltaic to householders and nonprofits like Trinity Episcopal. With Georgia BRIGHT, not solely are prospects decreasing their electrical energy payments and dependence on fossil fuels, they’re additionally hedging towards rising power costs and changing into fashions of resilience for his or her communities.
Over the following 25 years, Trinity Episcopal will save $60,560, and offset 705 tons of carbon dioxide (78 % of their complete power consumption).
“We’re excited to see Trinity Episcopal lastly get photo voltaic,” he stated Hannah Shultz, GIPL Program Director. “This has been a very long time coming and we hope it can permit them to take a position extra sources in mission and ministry of their neighborhood.”
“In the previous the advantages of photo voltaic have been out there to for-profit entities,” stated the founder and CEO of Capital Good Fund. Andy Posner“Thanks to President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, we’re serving to to alter the sport and lower the power burden throughout the state!”
Georgia Interfaith Power and Light (GIPL) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit group that evokes and equips religion communities to prepare, implement sensible local weather options, and advocate all through Georgia on problems with local weather change, justice surroundings, and neighborhood stability. An affiliate of the nationwide Interfaith Power and Light motion, GIPL envisions a Georgia the place all folks can thrive in a wholesome surroundings, a steady local weather, and powerful communities. .
Capital Good Fund is a nonprofit, US Treasury-certified Community Development Financial Institution that makes use of monetary providers to deal with poverty and environmental injustice in America. The Capital Good Fund created the Georgia BRIGHT photo voltaic leasing program that provides residential and business rooftop photo voltaic and photo voltaic plus battery storage leases and energy buy agreements to householders incomes lower than $100,000 a yr and mission -aligned statewide organizations. It additionally affords photo voltaic financing, low-interest loans, and one-on-one monetary teaching in eleven states, together with Georgia. Since their founding in 2009, they’ve disbursed over 14,000 loans and leases value over $44 million with a 97% compensation fee and have graduated over 2,000 folks from their Coaching program . Learn extra at GoodFund.us.