Colombia: Church installs solar panels to obtain clean energy and care for the environment

In Barranquilla, on the Colombian Atlantic coast, Redemptorist missionaries took a new step in the care of the Common House by installing solar panels in a parish to obtain clean energy.

This is the Nuestra Señora del Perpetuo Socorro parish, directed by Father Luis Carlos Jaime Murillo, a Redemptorist missionary who, in conversation with ACI Prensa, explained that the reasons for this change have been to respond to Pope Francis’ invitation to care for the Casa Común, “offer clean energy and mitigate the costs” of paying the electric service bill.

The priest indicated that until before the panels were in operation—installed between May and June—an electricity bill could reach up to eight million Colombian pesos, which at the current exchange rate is approximately two thousand dollars.

To carry out the project, the authorization of the congregation and the evaluation of the price were needed, “and taking into account the quote, we already decided to look for the resources to install the solar panels,” he noted.

“I think that we have energy, the main source of energy: first the force of God and second the sun. “God makes the sun rise for the good and the bad,” he said.

The project was designed and developed by the engineer Juan Carlos Rojas Sánchez, CEO of the company RCC Proyectos SAS, with technology type On-grid.

This technology “generates energy through solar radiation during the day and sells its surpluses” to the electrical grid operator “through an energy sales agreement,” the company explained to ACI Prensa.

The company, which “supports various projects for Redemptorist fathers,” explained that 72 solar panels were installed in the parish and that it is predicted that the investment will be recovered in three or four years.

Father Jaime Murillo said that the community “is very happy and continues to support us”, furthermore “it is new for the people, who have a very beautiful ecological sense, of saving and optimizing resources, and above all taking care of the House Common”.

Likewise, he explained that with the money that was previously allocated to pay for electricity consumption, pastoral programs will be financed.

“The faithful give us resources to manage and then if we manage the resources well, they can also invest in the field of pastoral care and in parish groups,” he indicated.

For example, in social ministry, the parish currently distributes almost 80 baskets with groceries to needy families per month. The parish priest said that this amount could be increased thanks to the savings that are being obtained.

“We also have housing improvement programs, we have free human promotion courses. Then you can invest more in the same people,” she expressed.