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SUNNY SHUL

Citing Jewish values, a Chicago synagogue covers its roof with solar panels

Rabbi Eitan Weiner-Kaplow of Shir Hadash

By George CastleSpecial to Chicago Jewish News

Different shades of greenpositively envelop Shir HadashReconstructionist Synagogue inWheeling.

Foremost is the green energyproduced by a 117,000-watt solarpanel system on the temple’s flatroof that reduces the carbonfootprint of the all-electric con-verted state library office build-ing at 200 W. Dundee Road.

And then there is a reducedoutput of green in the monetaryworld. Shir Hadash will paysmaller electric bills with naturalsunlight generating up to half theoutput of fossil fuels-producedpower that formerly cost as muchas $10,000 a month in the harsh-est of winters.

The savings is great for ShirHadash’s exchequer, but almostall temple officials and membershave a higher calling in in-stalling the largest solar systemon a synagogue in Illinois.

“It’s the Tikkun Olam aspectof it,” said Shir Hadash presidentGlenn Graff. “It’s our responsi-bility to heal the world. We’re aReconstructionist synagogue, sothat’s one of the things we takevery seriously. The enthusiasmfor it for doing good for theworld, for reducing the amountof carbon we have, for reducingthe number of trees (energy) wasusing, was very motivating forthe (temple) board.”

Shir Hadash Rabbi EitanWeiner-Kaplow was of one mindwith his actively involved flock:“It’s very, very special to do ourpart for the environment – ethi-cally and morally.”

Installed after a 60-day con-struction period, the green sys-tem will be highlighted in aspecial program – a “solarbra-tion” – at 11:15 a.m. Sunday,May 15, for both synagoguemembers and the general public.The event helps promote thecapital campaign to defer part ofthe out-of-pocket cost of the sys-tem.

Total cost is $438,000, ofwhich $240,000 – approximately60 percent – was paid for by agrant from the Illinois Clean En-ergy Community Foundation, anindependent foundation foundedin 1999 and endowed by Com-monwealth Edison.

Initial estimates project thesolar system will reduce ShirHadash’s carbon dioxide emis-sions by nearly 106 tons a year –the equivalent of planting morethan 4,200 trees each year. In thenext 25 years, the energy savedwill be the equivalent of planting108,976 trees or reducing auto-mobile use by more than 4 mil-lion miles.

“We believe that ShirHadash likely possesses thelargest solar array of any syna-gogue in the Midwest. It’s alsothe largest of all religious institu-tions in Illinois,” said ShirHadash grant writer RachelSchick.

The system eventually willsave Shir Hadash more than$20,000 per year in energy costs.The temple has been in its pres-

ent building for three years, en-abling Graff and fellow boardmembers to track long-term costsin energy use.

“We all want to do goodthings for the world,” said Graff.“But we’re spending templefunds, so we have to think seri-ously about whether it’s the mostprudent thing. It did everythingwe wanted. It was good for theworld. It’s a very visible way toshow what we stand for. And it’sa wise financial investment thatwill pay for itself over nine years.There was no reason not to doit.”

The enthusiasm was so strik-ing Weiner-Kaplow ordered asolar system installed at hisSkokie home.

“I’ve been thinking aboutsolar at home,” he said. “We

have no trees with a southern ex-posure. My bills are way down. Ilove the meter going backward.”

Solar energy has beenaround for decades. So it requireda unique spark at Shir Hadash toprompt the all-out commitmentto blending solar with existingenergy sources.

Fortunately, the temple hadcommercial architect MerhanFarahamdpour on its buildingcommittee to turn longtimemembership conversation aboutgoing green into action. With aprogressive philosophy, ShirHadash has attracted membersfrom its home community alongwith Arlington Heights, Barring-ton, Buffalo Grove, Chicago,Deerfield, Glenview, Gurnee,Highland Park, Northbrook,Palatine, Park Ridge and Skokie.

Farahamdpour was fascinated bythe solar system on the roof offriend Job Youshaei’s Persian rugretailer in Highland Park. Thesystem was installed by Wind-Free Solar, a company onChicago’s near northwest sidethat had installed more than 260solar systems over the past sevenyears. Farahamdpour was intro-duced to Terry Black, WindFree’svice president of solar develop-ment.

“As a member of the build-ing committee, I wondered whatwe would want in the building,”said Farahamdpour. “Green wasthe word coming out. We wanteda green building. We had highelectric bills on a regular basis.Immediately the light bulb wenton and I brought (Youshaei’s)panels to the committee’s atten-

10 Chicago Jewish News - May 6-12, 2016

SUNNY SHULCiting Jewish values, a Chicago synagogue

covers its roof with solar panels

Synagogue members on the roof of solar panels, from left, SteveVaron, Sandi Schleicher, Marc Fargotstein, Melanie Andes, Lynne Arons, MehranFarahmandpour, Fred Andes, Glenn Graff.

tion.”Proving yet another impetus

was Graff’s own experience withresidential solar systems in hisday job as a tax accountant.

“We wouldn’t put just twopanels up,” said Farahmdpour. “Isuggested a big system. Thebuilding committee had five peo-ple plus Glenn. I said let Terrycome in and talk. Terry gave agood presentation. We felt we’dsee if we can get the grants (todefray costs).

“The building committeemembers did additional home-work. They talked to other peo-ple in the industry. I conductedanother solar installer. The boardwas very enthusiastic.

“We put our money whereour mouth is, being green.”

WindFree Solar Black’s soldthe project on the basis of ShirHadash being able to get 60 per-cent of the project’s funding fromthe state due to its status as anon-profit institution.

“I helped them write thegrants and submit the paper-work,” Black said of the applica-tion to the state clean energyfoundation.

Numbers man Graff ran sev-eral scenarios. None had a down-side.

“Even on a very conserva-tive view, it was in nine years thiswould pay for itself,” he said.“The life of a solar panel is 25 to30 years.”

After educating the board,obtaining the state grant and lin-ing up the financing, Black’scompany installed the solar pan-els in just 60 days.

“This is an endowment for

that building,” Black said. “It hasa tremendous value to the prop-erty because it makes so muchelectricity.”

The Shir Hadash building’sflat commercial roof had large,open spaces that were well-suitedforWindFree’s work. Three hun-dred and sixty American-made,Solar World 325-watt panelswere placed into service. Five in-verters are converting the DCpower produced by the array intoAC for use in the building.

“When you think aboutstandard commodities like fossilfuels, things like natural gas,you’re looking at…a market thatcontinues to go up in costs,” saidBlack. “The thing about solar en-ergy once it’s installed is your op-erational expenses and costs ofmaterials is zero. There’s no costof energy with sunlight. We’veseen tremendous drops in thecost of materials the past fouryears. The technology’s beenaround a long time – 63 yearsago, by Bell Labs.

“I’ve been an environmen-talist all my life. I participated inthe first Earth Day in 1980. I un-derstood we were spoiling ourhome, the only one we got. It’sonly going to take so much be-fore it kicks back.”

Black called solar energy an“electric endowment…Workingwith organizations like ShirHadash and other (religious or-ganizations) and community or-ganizations, these are areas thatare going to shine a light to thelay person about what their re-sponsibility is.”

A solar receptor in Chicago,of course, will not collect as

much sunlight to be convertedinto energy as a similar installa-tion in Phoenix or, at mile-highaltitude, in Denver.

“If you put a 1,000-wattarray on a building in Chicago, itgets about 4 ½ peak solar hours aday, 365 days a year on average,”said Black. “That same solararray in Denver or Phoenix willget 6 ½ hours a day 365 days ayear. It’s getting about 30 percentmore energy hitting it. The solararray will produce 1,200 kilowatthours of power a year. The samearray in Denver or Phoenix willproduce about 1,700 or 1,800hours a day a year.”

The upshot is the Sunbelt ormountain cities, paying more infossil-fuel energy costs now, willsave proportionally more whensolar power is factored in, saidBlack. But the savings in theUpper Midwest still will be con-siderable even though more timewill be required to recover theinitial investment.

The sales pitch from Blackto, say, Shir Hadash, was save asmuch as possible no matter howless radiant energy hits their ar-rays compared to a synagogue inPhoenix, which would be blast-ing its air conditioning the ma-jority of the year.

“Shir Hadash is an all-elec-tric (including heat) building,”Black said. “They consume a lotof electricity on an annual basis.The idea was to maximize theirgiven roof space to be able to off-seat as much of the electrical useas possible. We’re limited to theroof space available facingsouth.”

Even when the least amountof sunlight is collected in winter,any savings is appreciated at ShirHadash. Using electric heat in-stead of natural gas, Graff saidthe temple has experienced some“mind-numbing” power bills inthe coldest months. In contrast,

the mild winter just concludedproduced no monthly bills higherthan $5,000.

“Our bills are around$50,000 a year,” he said.

Black said Shir Hadash’ssolar system is “grid-tied” withCom Edison via interconnectionand net metering agreements.

“If we over-produce on agiven day where the building’soperational needs are more thanmet by the solar (system) and weproduce excess energy…it willpush out of the building and turnthe meter backwards,” he said.

The excess energy is pushedout on a grid. But when thebuilding is fully in use and usingmore energy than the solar pan-els are producing, the “credit”will be pulled back in from ComEd. The electricity is in essencebanked on the grid.

“When we design a system,we want to be around 30 to 50percent (of the power use) of thebuilding,” Black said. “Remem-ber, we’re not making power atnight, even though we’re usingelectricity.”

Steve Cortesi, WindFreeproject manager and chief engi-neer on the project, trained thesynagogue staff on how to moni-tor the data and maintain thesystem. WindFree will inspectthe system – operating with atwo-year warranty – twice a year.

Even with the solar panels,Shir Hadash has not stopped try-ing to modernize its energy foot-print in the Dundee Roadbuilding.

“We had a capital drive toput LED lights in our sanctuary,and the board also authorized ad-ditional funds to convert someother parts of the temple toLED,” said Graff. “That’s hittingboth things of we want to use lesselectricity and be kinder to theplanet. They also use less elec-

tricity.”Energy savings will be ap-

plied to all aspects of ShirHadash, still in the buildingphase in its 21st year after for-merly scattering its operationsamong Northbrook, Deerfieldand Riverwoods.

“We’re going through amembership drive campaign,”Graff said. “We’ve adjusted ourtuition for young children to tryto attract younger families. Thesavings on our operating fromelectricity are certainly helpful indoing that.”

By now word has circulatedthroughout the synagogue com-munity. But it’s safe to say otherinstitutions are not green withenvy. They are rooting for ShirHadash and are at the least curi-ous.

“Some rabbis have talked tome about our system,” saidWeiner-Kaplow. “I’ve taken sev-eral of them up on the roof.”

But if other synagogues andchurches want to copy ShirHadash, they may have to en-gage in big fund-raising cam-paigns. The state budget crisisthat has hobbled a myriad of in-stitutions now has put the brakeson the kind of subsidies for solarprojects that Shir Hadash en-joyed.

“That was our initial hope,to do more of that,” Black said ofworking for other religious insti-tutions. “In December, the Illi-nois Community Foundationdecided not to fund large-scalesolar foundations anymore. Thefunds that were available to ShirHadash are not available to otherreligious institutions.”

Where there’s a will, there’sa way. Fossil fuels will be ex-hausted long before the sun itself.A backward-moving electricmeter is a powerful inducement.

11Chicago Jewish News - May 6-12, 2016

The entire roof of Shir Hadash is covered with solar panels.

Architect Mehran Farahmandpour