St. Bart's Begins Partnership with Focus on Energy Wisconsin
St. Bart's, Pewaukee would like to heartily thank our diocese's Commission on Creation Care. We'd like to thank them first for awarding us one of the 2024 grants. We also would like to thank them for bringing encouragement to the work our members had begun and prompting us to develop a partnership with Focus on Energy Wisconsin and energy advisor Cody Crouse.
St. Bart's Energy Team leader Tom Corbin, and parishioner and electrician Pete Lenti, with our facilities manager Dave Woods, began a massive project of repairs and upgrading in January in preparation for making all of St. Bart's an LED-lighting facility thereby drastically reducing our energy usage. Cody then made an in-depth walkthrough of our facilities (see the photos!) to help us determine what additional opportunities we have to reduce energy use. He left no area of St. Bart's unexplored!
St. Bart's was wowed by the Focus on Energy Program. Here's how it works:
- Model number for DLC or Energy Star-compliant LEDs and Furnaces may be submitted.
- Focus On Energy reviews a recent energy bill from the parish.
- They then extract a "blended electricity cost and estimated annual usage" to calculate the parish's projected energy savings.
- This projected savings determines how much funding the parish may apply for under the Nonprofit Efficiency Accelerator (NEA).
- The NEA may then provide fifteen (15) times the parish's annual energy savings, up to 75% of the project cost and up to $100,000 per project.
Thank you again everyone on the Commission on Creation Care for the grant, your education, and your encouragement.
~The Rev. Joel Prather, rector