Let There Be Light: Massachusetts Synagogue Gets Power From Solar Panels
A synagogue in Massachusetts has installed 265 solar panels on its roof, ensuring that 92% of its power needs are met with renewable resources.
Temple Aliyah, a Conservative congregation in Needham, outside Boston, is expected to save $6,600 in electricity costs in its first year and nearly $245,000 over the course of 20 years, thanks to its new solar energy system. The panels, installed by Solect Energy and serviced by the energy consortium PowerOptions, will generate 85,170 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year.
“At Temple Aliyah, we are focused on making a better future for our community, both large and small,” the synagogue president, David Farbman, said in a statement. “We believe that by significantly reducing our carbon footprint by hosting one of the largest solar arrays of any house of worship in the state, we are helping both our synagogue and our wider world at the same time.”
“Our tradition teaches us that we have a duty ‘to till and to tend’ the precious world which is our collective home,” Rabbi Carl Perkins added. “That implies that we must seek to conserve natural resources, including energy. By capturing some of the energy contained in the sunlight falling on our property, we are making progress in our quest to be faithful stewards of this precious collective home which has been entrusted to us.”
The synagogue, founded in 1964, has over 400 families, according to its website.
Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO