Solar Resources

Interested in helping your congregation go solar? Here are a few resources to get you started.

Guides

Going Solar: 10 Steps for Congregations (1 page)
Going Solar: Guidebook for Houses of Worship (48 pages, published in 2015-- revision coming soon!)
What is a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA)? (2 pages)
Solar Guide for Houses of Worship: How to Use Investors (by the Genesis of Ann Arbor Green Team, 10 pages)

Webinars

Solar Summit: A Webinar with Haslett Community Church (March 2020)
Solar Faithful Webinar: Using Investors and Power Purchase Agreements (May 2020)

Solar Congregations in Michigan

As of May 2020, nearly 30 Michigan congregations use some form of solar energy. Here are the ones we're aware of:

Ann Arbor Seventh-day Adventist Church	Ann Arbor
Campus Chapel	Ann Arbor
First Congregational Church	Ann Arbor
First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor	Ann Arbor
Genesis of Ann Arbor	Ann Arbor
Congregational Church of Birmingham, UCC	Bloomfield Hills
Gesu Catholic Church and School	Detroit
Lord of Lords Ministries (solar exterior lights)	Detroit
Pilgrim Baptist Church (solar exterior lights)	Detroit
St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church (solar water heater)	Detroit
St. Peter's Episcopal Church	Detroit
Edgewood United Church	East Lansing
Islamic Center of East Lansing	East Lansing
Journey House Community of Christ (community solar)	East Lansing
The Peoples Church (community solar)	East Lansing
Ferndale First United Methodist Church	Ferndale
Church of the Servant	Grand Rapids
Plymouth United Church of Christ	Grand Rapids
Haslett Community Church	Haslett
Emmanuel Episcopal Church	Hastings
People's Church	Kalamazoo
Capital Area Congregation Community of Christ (community solar)	Lansing
Grace Lutheran Church	Lansing
Madonna University	Livonia
Congregation of St. Joseph	Nazareth
First Presbyterian Church of Saline	Saline
Berrien Unitarian Universalist Fellowship	St. Joseph
Keswick United Methodist Church	Suttons Bay
Hope Lutheran Church	Warren

If your solar congregation would like to be added to this list, email Jennifer. Faith communities that have installed solar are usually pretty excited to tell others about it, so if you'd like our help reaching a solar congregation, let us know and we'll do our best to connect you.

Legal Templates

As a part of the Solar Faithful initiative, funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy and the City of Ann Arbor, we have four legal templates that may be useful if your faith community endeavors to finance solar using a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) or investor-owned LLC. Enter your contact information here to receive the links to the legal templates.