This season of light, more houses of worship are powered by solar

The holiday season is when lights shine bright, and some places of worship in Southern California are finding that light in solar.

This year, it was finally time to replace the roof on Temple Emanu El in Burbank. The synagogue figured it’d be a good time to explore solar too, said congregant Limor Zimskind.

“Especially since our electricity bills are so high,” Zimskind said.

Like most of us, the temple's bills have been rising over the years due to rate hikes and increasingly extreme heat driven by climate change. Their electric bill alone is around $4,000 a month in the summer.

 "We can't turn off the air conditioning — we run a preschool,” Zimskind said. “So it's just costs that we have to absorb that are not in our operational budget."

So when the temple won a grant to install solar panels from the Jewish Solar Challenge — an initiative that helps Jewish institutions go solar — it was a fitting gift for this year’s Festival of Lights, and a way to practice an important Jewish concept, said Zimskind.

“It's called ‘l'dor v'dor,’ which is basically ‘from generation to generation’ [in Hebrew],” Zimskind said. “It's how do we…live for the past, but also for the future. I personally feel we're helping that next generation.”

The synagogue is part of a growing trend of houses of worship going solar.

Lifelong Watts resident and environmental justice advocate Linda Cleveland, also sees solar panels as a way to build a healthier foundation for future generations.

“As Christians, as people of faith, we're called to help take care of this land that we live in,” Cleveland said.

Cleveland is a member of the Watts-Willowbrook Church of Christ in Compton, better known as The Brook. With the help of funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, and other partners, they’ve already installed solar panels and hope to add battery storage next year.

Since the pandemic, Cleveland said the church has struggled with costs and meeting community needs. The panels and battery storage are expected to save the church more than $180,000 on electricity bills over the next 20 years thanks to a direct pay provision in the Biden administration’s landmark climate law that allows nonprofits to receive 30% or more in cash back on the cost of a solar system.

 "It's important for us to make sure that we have a safe space for the congregation and the community,” said Jacquelyn Badejo, Cleveland’s daughter and partner in advocating for environmental justice in Watts and surrounding communities.

The money the church will save on solar panels opens up a lot more resources for other needs, while also boosting community resilience.

“If there's a heat episode going on in the community, if the smoke from the fires are blown our way [or] other fires that have been in the community like at the pallet companies, where people have had to leave their homes and go find a safe space to breathe some clean, fresh air,” Cleveland said, “with the solar panels on the church, that gives an opportunity for us to open our doors up and invite them in.”