Faith lights the way in Evanston congregation’s energy upgrades

The shortest day of the year is approaching, but the rooftop solar system at Northminster Presbyterian Church in northwest Evanston has shed its coating of snow and is at work converting every bit of available sunlight into electricity. The system was installed in April, just in time to take advantage of lengthening spring days and marking a major milestone in the congregation’s ongoing commitment to climate action. It had been a long journey — and it wasn’t over quite yet.

A deep commitment, a long journey

In the 1980s, the congregation formed its first environmental task force. Over the years, they introduced recycling and composting and installed a vegetable garden to help supply a food pantry. Then they turned to the building itself. One early effort was the switch to energy-efficient LED lighting. 

The church was founded in 1923, and the sanctuary on Central Park Avenue was completed in1929. Additional structures, including the education building where the solar panels are now located, were added in the 1950s and 1970s. It is, Pastor Michael Kirby says, “a Frankenstein’s monster of a structure” that makes energy upgrades a challenge. 

To help guide efforts to make the building more climate resilient — not only more energy efficient but also water-tight and ready to weather climate-fueled storms — the congregation commissioned an engineering study in 2018, not long after Kirby’s arrival in Evanston. 

This helped inform plans for what would ultimately become a $2.3 million capital campaign they called “Growing, Greening, Serving” to mark the 100th anniversary of the congregation’s founding. “Our relationship with creation is one of the principal ways in which we culturally have sinned,” Kirby says. “So how can we make amends to creation and recognize that what we have done is increase the burden on the poor because they’re the ones most affected by climate change? It’s a way of caring for the least among us to stop being a part of the problem and to start being part of the solution.” 

They prepared to launch the capital campaign in March 2020. That, of course, turned out to be the beginning of the Covid shutdown. Public gatherings, including church services, were cancelled.

That turned out to be a “blessing,” Kirby says, because they were able to move ahead with upgrades more quickly while the building was largely empty. 

During an August visit, he and facilities manager Mark Larsen pointed out some of the projects that together have already increased efficiency and comfort while lowering the cost of heating with steam boilers. The work has also stopped what used to be chronic flooding. The basement is now so dry that the church has been able to qualify as a certified American Red Cross emergency evacuation shelter.

Benchmarking progress

The city’s 2017 Benchmarking Ordinance, which requires large buildings to track energy and water usage, addresses the fact that 80% of Evanston’s climate-heating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from existing buildings. To meet the city’s GHG reduction goals, which include cutting building energy consumption 50% from 2005 levels by 2050, buildings have to become more efficient and shift to more renewable energy sources. Building managers use the U.S. EPA’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager for reporting, with most data coming directly from utilities like ComEd and Nicor. 

Northminster is one of a handful of buildings categorized as “worship facilities” large enough to participate in benchmark reporting. In 2018, the church reported onsite GHG emissions totaling 121.9 metric tons. Five years later, the numbers reflected the results of their work: 2023 onsite GHG emissions had dropped to 100.7 metric tons, and their Energy Star score had increased from 42 on a scale of 100 to 56.7 — less than 75 required as an Energy Star building, but progress.  Although there are limits to what can be done to upgrade such a big old building, Kirby says, “it’s all heading in the right direction.” 

Beyond energy saving to renewable energy generation

Then this year, thanks to an unexpected and generous donation, the congregation was able to move ahead with a rooftop solar project and begin generating clean renewable energy. 

Iain Drummond, a member of the congregation from childhood, had moved away, but returned to Evanston in 2018 and joined the buildings and grounds committee. An engineer working in the solar industry (currently for Certasun, a residential solar energy company based in the Chicago area), he helped to shepherd the project to completion, earning the title “solar guru.” 

The system was purchased outright from Verde, the same company that’s installing panels on the Robert Crown Community Center. The 25 kW system (25 double panels) was installed in April on the flat roof of the education building, tilted toward the south.

ComEd connected the system to the grid in late May, and in the first month of operation, the system covered a third of the church’s electric bill. Several weeks later, issues with the way the panels connected with the building’s electric system took the panels offline for two months, which unfortunately happened to be the sunniest months of the year. Then there was a delay in getting the monitoring system up and running. “Things do go wrong and there are issues and questions that come up,” Drummond says.

But now everything is working, and when people gather in the church meeting room after a service or for an event, they can watch “active live generation consumption, the energy flow of the church in real time” on a large-screen TV. “That’s very exciting — although obviously not so exciting over the last 10 days with all the snow,” Drummond says.

Once they have a year’s worth of data, they’ll have a clearer idea of how the system is performing. Drummond thinks it’s possible that during the summer months, they  may produce as much energy as the church consumes. During periods like the one we’re in now, the system will underproduce. “But on average, over the year, we expect that it will produce at least 30%,” he says. 

“It’s more efficient for us, better for God’s creation, and it makes us better neighbors,” says Kirby.

Still work to be done

“We know that there’s a lot more that we could be doing” says Kirby. He briefly imagines a solar “tree” or solar tiles on the steeply pitched sanctuary roof. 

For now, some of the projects they’re planning, like more work on the boiler system, may not be as exciting as rooftop solar. But they will make a difference on a day-to-day basis, Drummond says. Already, “we’ve really made dramatic inroads in energy efficiency and this falls under this sense of our responsibility to the environment as part of our faith.”

The congregation’s commitment to climate action is also a powerful educational tool, Kirby says. It helps children see that “we are really working to be good stewards of creation, encouraging them to do the same thing — and seeing that part of what it means to be the face of the future, to live a grateful life, is to take good care of the things that you’ve been given, including the planet.”

Northminster is one of a number of local faith communities to invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy. Earlier this year we reported on rooftop solar projects at the Immanuel Lutheran and Unitarian churches.