The Church in Brazil chooses to invest in renewable energy

By Bianca Fraccalvieri

In Natal, the capital city of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, in Brazil’s north-eastern region, the sun shines 300 days a year for almost 15 hours every day in summer. With so much light available, the archdiocese has been able to develop a photovoltaic solar energy project that meets the energy needs of all the 115 parishes in the area. The ambitious initiative began in 2019, when it was pioneered by five parishes.

The proposal expanded at the end of April that year, with the instalment of solar panels in 13 more parish churches at strategic locations around the region, which began to act as clean energy distributors for other locations as well, thus serving the entire archdiocese. "Of course, it is a project that cost a lot, and was complex to implement, but at the time we had the courage to choose five parishes, including our headquarters - the Archdiocese of Natal - as a pilot project, and it worked. It was a dream,” Natal Cathedral pastor Father Valdir Cândido de Morais said, “that has become a reality today!"

As scheduled, the efficiency project was completed last June 30, when all the systems went into operation simultaneously. After about a month, the energy began to be distributed and used by all the 115 parishes in the archdiocesan territory, with immediate benefits for the environment and the population: "the plants are able to generate a total of 150 MWh per month," said Ítalo Nogueira, the archdiocese's administrative manager, who expressed satisfaction for how things are going.

The project

The solar power installation project was developed and financed by a specialized company and within about 80 months it will generate profits that cover investment costs and more. The team that worked to ensure the project’s sustainability includes an architect, who mapped the churches to determine those that had the greatest architectural viability in order to properly install the solar panels on the roofs of the buildings.

Currently, the archdiocese spends more or less 140,000 Brazilian Reais a month - about 26,000 Euros - on electricity; the project will enable it to save more than one million Reais per year. According to Vital Bezerra, administrative director of the archdiocese, the resources that were previously earmarked for this purpose will now subsidize other parish community activities. "When the financing costs have been paid for, each parish will be left with more resources to devote to its mission and to evangelization. Everyone will be able to fund the activities they prefer and promote solidarity initiatives aimed at all segments of the population. This is the main result we hope to achieve with this project," he said.

Caring for our Common Home

The 115 parishes of the archdiocese are distributed in 88 municipalities, including, in addition to the capital Natal, several regions in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, which receive sunlight most days of the year. This means there is a permanent and immediately expendable source of clean energy. "This is one of many projects that goes in the direction desired by the Pope.

We are in line with Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato si', which, with an all-encompassing and interconnected outlook, deals with the care for our Common Home: the environment in which we live and in which future generations will have to live," pointed out Archbishop Jaime Vieira Rocha, of Natal. "In this document, published in 2015, the Holy Father calls our attention to the use of renewable energies, that is, clean energies that do not poison the planet. So if we are in a privileged region, which receives sunlight almost every day of the year, for most hours of the day, and if technology favours us in transforming this sunlight into clean energy, we must set an example. We are very happy- he concluded - with the pastors' support for this project."