Solar Canopy at JCA

In this season of darkness, it’s part of our work to celebrate the light. Happy Hanukkah, for those who celebrate the light in that way. 

I was privileged to be involved in a project at the Jewish Community of Amherst (JCA), where I joined the Green Team to help the synagogue think about earth-friendly moves we might make. Over the course of several years, including the outbreak of COVID, we worked as a group to try to make the JCA carbon-neutral. As the local Deep Energy Retrofit nerd, I told the rabbi once that I only knew one way to do that: reduce the loads, electrify everything, and power it all with renewables. 

Now, it’s true that to emit truly no carbon emissions related to your building you would have to add battery storage for the times when the sun was gone, or to just turn off the building at night. But we could get very close, and, using the grid as our battery, we could balance the equation for energy. 

Energy Consumed = Energy Produced? We could get there.

We began with energy efficiency - by reducing the wasted energy with weather stripping and air sealing and adding insulation where we could. Efficiency programs in the state helped fund those initiatives. This reduced the losses through the enclosure and mechanical systems, and lowered the heating / cooling loads on the buildings.

With the energy loads reduced, we electrified the systems - air source heat pumps were installed to do heating and cooling and hot water. The kitchen was taken off gas and converted to induction cooking and baking. The oil furnaces were removed. 

Then, lastly, the community installed 97kW of solar power generation - a canopied parking area with solar panels over our heads. The cars in summer would shelter in the shade, and in winter hide from the snow fall. And the photovoltaic panels (PV) would generate enough energy in a year to offset the energy consumed on site. It’s called Site Net Zero, technically, and it means we balanced the equation.