It's Sunnyside Up as green light shines on Church eco project
pr 07/08
21/11/2008
A Hertfordshire church is to become the first Church in St Albans Diocese to use solar energy to generate electricity.
St Michael and All Angels (Sunnyside) in Ivy House Lane Berkhamsted, is to become the first Church in St Albans Diocese to use solar energy to generate electricity following the grant of planning permission to install 22 photovoltaic panels on the Church Hall Roof. Two years careful planning and discussion have gone into the successful application to Dacorum Council. St Albans Diocese includes the counties of Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. The photovoltaic panels will be fitted on the roof of the south facing church hall, which was built in the 1980s and which won an environmental award for care in its in construction. This will not affect the overall front facing appearance of the Grade 2 listed church building or create any issues for our close neighbours as the panels will not be visible from the road or adjacent rail link. The church hall roof will suffer no permanent damage from this project
More than three hundred local people have also helped to assist in the planning process. These include church members and other users of the church hall along with residents at ‘The Cedars', the only neighbours who will have sight of the panels, The diocese of St Albans has also backed the project with the personal endorsement of the Archdeacon of St Albans, the Venerable Jonathan Smith. He said: "This is an imaginative and sensitive way of putting into practice our desire to reduce the Church's carbon footprint. I hope others will be encouraged by this project."
The Revd David Abbott, Rector of Sunnyside said: "The Church of England promotes of use of ‘renewables' and ‘energy saving'. It is very appropriate that Sunnyside Church should demonstrate its care and responsibility for God's creation by implementing this scheme."
The Building Research Establishment at Watford have backed the project and have awarded grant funding . Berkhamsted Town Council have been very positive from the initial start of the project, the help and positive attitude of local counsellors and the town planning committee towards this green energy project has been very much appreciated by the Church. Sunnyside Parochial Church Council has pledged funds to match the grant from BRE by using part of a bequest that is limited to use on the fabric of the church.
The Church of England is committed to reducing the church's carbon footprint to 40% of current levels by 2050.
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Technical notes
Photovoltaic electricity generation is a proven form of green micro generation from light. This project will help reduce the Church green house gas emissions by an additional two tons per year. That is over forty tones in the panels' twenty year warranty period, the panels could last up to forty years or more so this will benefit the environment for many years to come. It will also reduce the Church fuel bills. The Church hopes that this will also encourage and promote the use of green energy in the community and in other churches within the diocese of St Albans and area. Sunnyside Church will be the first Church in the diocese of St Albans to install such a system.
The Church stewardship planning team has also taken a lot of care in the choice of PV technology. Green thinking says to consider the energy used in the actual production of the panel itself. The choice of Sanyo HIT hybrid panels was made partly because of the low energy consumption in their original manufacture. Twenty two Sanyo panels will be fitted each at 210w giving a total output of up to 4.65kw, enough to light the Church on the darkest days of winter with some over. Inverters would be fitted in the hall loft converting the DC output to AC. As the system would be grid connected the church will be able to sell back any electric that was not being used to the National Grid, this would happen at times of non use of the church buildings.
Specialist contractors for the installation are Solar Century Ltd the government framework contractor and Chelsfield Solar both very respected names in the industry. ‘Chelsfield' have fitted Photovoltaic Panels on one of the Uk's oldest Grade 1 Listed Churches (1210). The architect for this scheme at Sunnyside is Robert Thompson from ‘Thompson Bradford Architects Limited'
Contact: Arun Kataria Communications Officer St Albans 01727 818143 akataria@stalbans.anglican.org
