St. Patrick's Episcopal Church Wins Power Award at the GIPPY's
We had our Fifth Annual GIPPY Awards last week, and we'll be posting one winner on the blog each week for the next four weeks. Our first winner is St. Patrick's Episcopal Church in Dunwoody, who won the Power Award, which is given out each year for excellence in energy efficiency.
The Power Award goes to the congregation that has overwhelmingly embraced energy efficiency and has sought to significantly decrease their carbon footprint. This year’s Power Award winner is St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Dunwoody. St. Patrick’s has undertaken and completed the largest “green” initiatives in its history. Working together to transform St. Patrick’s church into an energy conserving and environmentally conscious church, Bill Rankin and former Junior Warden John Lauber planned major upgrades. In the past year, because of all of their work, they have seen a 15% reduction in their energy bills.
St. Patrick’s completed a GIPL Energy Audit on June 1, 2009. The church campus of almost 29,000 square feet was found to be incurring high electric and natural gas bills of over $36,000 annually. Although parish income had dropped significantly in early 2009, John was able to identify $150,000 in diocesan loans to carry out improvements, including over $10,000 in Energy Improvement Matching Grant funds from GIPL.
As identified in their Energy Audit, their extensive array of seventeen heat pumps and conventional gas furnaces were old and obsolete energy hogs, some of which were twenty five years old. Amazingly, St. Patrick’s has replaced all seventeen of their heat pumps and gas furnaces, and they have already seen lower energy bills.
Additionally, because St. Patricks has one of the largest community food banks in Atlanta, known as Malachi Storehouse, they replaced all of their old donated refrigerators with new energy star appliances including a commercial high efficiency walk in refrigerator, new ice machine, and a new stove for cooking for the Peachtree Pine Shelter.
During the 2010 Fall Parish Work Day they completed a major LED lighting project, and with the help of parishioners, and a $6300 Energy Improvement Matching grant from GIPL, they were able to retrofit more efficient lighting fixtures and LED bulbs throughout the church. All of the new HVAC systems and Energy Star appliances are now in place and they are making a significant difference in reducing their parish carbon footprint, reducing their energy consumption and significantly lowering their energy bills.
This Power Award is in recognition of the hundreds of church volunteer hours that have gone into making St. Patrick’s a green leader in Georgia. St. Patrick’s has not only heard the call to environmentally friendly initiatives, but persistently sought out the available resources and made it happen.
Congratulations to St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church, winner of this year’s Power Award.