Solar panels were recently installed at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Hampton Bays. COURTESY JOHN MITCHELL
Solar panels were recently installed at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Hampton Bays. COURTESY JOHN MITCHELL
Reporter
Solar panels were recently installed at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Hampton Bays. COURTESY JOHN MITCHELL
Solar panels were recently installed at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Hampton Bays. COURTESY JOHN MITCHELL
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Hampton Bays has added an array of solar panels to its roof as part of an effort to be more environmentally conscious.
The church collaborated with SUNation, a Ronkonkoma-based solar panel installation company, to add 45 panels.
“The religious part of this is a response of wanting to reduce our carbon footprint, being ecologically responsible to care for God’s creation,” said Rector Justin A. Falciani. “That is the perspective that caused us to look into what we can do around campus in terms of doing this”
The idea for the project came from John Mitchell, a longtime attendee of St. Mary’s who serves as the co-chairman of the church’s buildings and grounds committee. He’s long wanted the church to do something like this and got extra motivation when he saw that St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Islip in 2025.
Mitchell noted that nonprofits like churches and schools are eligible to 20 to 30 percent rebates for solar projects under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which helped him push a project he had long been encouraging the church to do.
“My wife and I have been going there since 1980, and with our previous rector, I had done a proposal with a different company, but it was too expensive at the time,” he said. “But with this incentive of a tax rebate, we said why not? I mean, if we can reduce our electric bills at a reduced cost, reduce our carbon footprint and be a responsible steward in the community and use less electricity, let’s go for it.”
Mitchell said that he’s pleased with what he’s seen from the panels so far, though he noted that production has been reduced due to the snowfall the area has gotten this winter.
Falciani added that “from the parishioners’ [perspective], I think they were very happy that we were doing this.”
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