Parish priest sees the light as new solar panels slash church electricity bills in Co Louth

A parish priest has seen his church electricity bill drop by almost €150 in just a month after he installed solar panels to save on soaring energy costs.

Fr Paul Byrne and the parish finance committee in Termonfeckin, Co Louth, decided to install ground solar panels to heat both the Church of the Immaculate Conception and its neighbouring parochial house after seeing their electricity bills spiral upwards of 300 per cent.

The 20 panels were installed in the grounds of the parochial house last month and Fr Byrne has already noticed savings in connecting to the national grid

“This parish had been talking about solar panels for a long number of years but we really began looking into it when electricity prices just kept getting higher,” Fr Byrne said.

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“It’s only since July last year that homeowners became eligible to sell their surplus solar electricity to the grid which made the concept more valid, considering the high initial cost outlay.

“Many grant schemes that we looked into were only for community halls or premises, which ruled us out as this parish has a limited amount of parochial properties and land. Churches are listed as commercial buildings so the tariffs for energy are three times higher than residential properties which makes energy bills even more costly.”

The parish first considered alternatives including low consumption lights in the church, but this would have worked out more costly than installing solar panels as the parish would still have been left with huge heating bills.

“This time of year, we use very little electricity. We only need to turn on the heating about a half an hour before Mass so we are already generating about one-eighth of our energy straight back to the grid, which we may get a few euro for,” Fr Byrne said.

“When we started investigating the process, we discovered that we didn’t need planning permission if we installed the panels on the ground and the meters are installed at the back of the house so there was very little need for ground excavations. We just read the meters, submit them to the electricity company and we are already in surplus.”

The energy bill for July was €100, in comparison to €243 for the same month last year.

“I like the heat. I don’t think people pray very well if they have to huddle together to keep warm. In the depths of winter, we have to turn on the heat at 4.30am so that the temperature in the church would be comfortable for 9.30am Mass. So we are hoping to see a big difference in the bills this winter.”

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The solar panels cost the standard €8,000 and there was a €2,500 grant available for the parochial house as a residential building. There were no grants available for the church.

“It is a lot for an initial cost outlay but when you see the bills rising constantly each month, even in summer, when we use very little heating and lighting, it was [a] necessary cost which we are already seeing a return on and it has the extra bonus of helping the environment.”

The solar panels are not the only environmentally-friendly project that Termonfeckin parish has undertaken and Fr Byrne has decided to give some of the parish’s green areas back to nature.

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In recent months, Catholic bishops have asked parishes to set aside 30 per cent of their land for rewilding and other environmental projects aimed at supporting biodiversity.

“We have set aside land in the grounds of both churches in the parish, the Church of the Immaculate Conception and the Church of the Assumption in the nearby village of Sandpit to use as meadow lands and in the spring, we will ask children from the two local national schools to plant wildflowers there.”