East Tennessee diocese to install solar panels on headquarters, pay savings forward to congregations

The Diocese of East Tennessee headquarters building is located in Knoxville. Photo: Andrew Morehead

[Episcopal News Service] The Diocese of East Tennessee wants to reduce the electric bills at its diocesan headquarters in Knoxville to zero. By installing solar panels on the roof, it estimates it will save $8,000 a year, and it plans to pay those savings forward by investing in other energy efficiency projects in the diocese.

“God told us that we’re the stewards of this creation and we’re to take care of it,” Brother Andrew Morehead, the diocese’s missioner for communications and evangelism, told Episcopal News Service. “We need to be able to take what things we have and tools we have that best serve God’s creation and then put them into good use.”

Some of those tools are quite ordinary. The diocese, for example, already has swapped out less-efficient light bulbs for LEDs in its offices. It also installed motion sensors, so the lights automatically turn off when people leave rooms, and it upgraded to “smart” controls for its HVAC system.

And at a time when many dioceses and congregations across The Episcopal Church are adding solar power to fulfill churchwide conservation goals, East Tennessee is embarking on its first solar project, in the hopes that it will inspire similar initiatives around the diocese.

The original inspiration was provided by the 80th General Convention, which pledged the church in 2022 to “commit to a goal of net carbon neutrality in its operations and the work of staff, standing commissions, interim bodies, and General Convention by 2030.”

The resolution also encouraged Episcopalians at the local and diocesan level to work toward the same goal “through a combination of reducing emissions from travel, reducing energy use, increasing energy efficiency in buildings and purchasing offsets from duly investigated, responsible, and ethical partners.”

In 2024, members of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Knoxville proposed a resolution at East Tennessee’s diocesan convention to act in response to General Convention’s encouragement, and the diocese agreed to form a task force to lead efforts in support of carbon neutrality.

At the diocesan headquarters, located on land adjacent to an Episcopal school, “we’ve done as much as we can with the building itself” improving its energy efficiency, Morehead said. Diocesan leaders, with Bishop Brian Cole’s support, began researching renewable energy options. They hired a company, Solar Alliance, to assess the diocesan building and determine what was possible there.

Solar Alliance produced a plan to create a 44-kilowatt system of 83 rooftop solar panels and a 30-kilowatt backup battery at a cost of $163,000. That would be enough power to cover the building’s electrical consumption while storing excess power by battery for use on cloudy days, at night or during outages.

The diocese is moving forward with the project and hopes to have the solar panels online within the next month or so, after which the energy savings will take about 15 years to match the cost of investing in the project.

East Tennessee isn’t paying for the project by taking out a loan. Instead, it is drawing cash from a reserve fund, so it can begin realizing immediate savings from solar power – and use those savings to spur energy efficiency efforts at its congregations, particularly those with fewer than 75 people on an average Sunday.

The congregations could make a difference by simple upgrades, like LED lights and motion sensors, Morehead said. Some also may be interested in researching solar options at their own buildings.

“Part of this project was so we as diocesan leadership … had experience in this to provide them with the knowledge,” he said. Solar power “comes with its own intricacies.”

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.