With solar power, Salem places of worship aim to be base camps if disaster strikes

Jonathan Bach | Statesman Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption Cranberry farmers look to solar power for hope Plummeting cranberry prices has America’s cranberry industry eyeing a possible new savior: solar power. Cranberry farmers in Massachusetts are proposing to build solar farms above their bogs. (Oct. 30)

Kim Herb wants her synagogue to become a "base camp" for Salem if disaster strikes.

Temple Beth Sholom, where Herb's husband Eli is the rabbi, already agreed to house a shipping container with supplies for the City of Salem's Community Emergency Response Team.

The cache might hold a ham radio in case cell phone towers go down, bandages and splints to patch up injured residents, and gloves and hardhats for extra protection.

But the synagogue at 1274 Cunningham Lane S took things one step further when it won a $38,386 grant from electricity provider Portland General Electric to install solar panels atop a to-be-built carport. If power goes out in a crisis, energy generated by the sun could become indispensable at base camp.

"I wouldn't say that we're officially preppers at this point but ... we want to be a place that people go to," Herb said.

Temple Beth Sholom isn't alone. Several United Methodist churches under the name Open Door Churches won $100,000 in grants from the electric company to install solar panels at five of their Salem-area locations.

Greg Walsh, Salem's emergency preparedness manager, said Temple Beth Sholom's panels will provide a place to charge devices or provide heat for people in a winter emergency. The ham radio could also run off the supplied power from the solar power system, he said.

Having that extra power provides a backup “safety net,” Walsh said.

Dan Janosec, Portland General Electric's grants manager, agreed. "In addition to advancing clean energy, the systems will enhance their ability to serve as a resource to the community in an emergency by continuing to generate power even if there are outages in the immediate vicinity," Janosec said in a statement.

Fundraising needed to finish projects

Both faith organizations need to raise more money for their solar projects. For instance, the synagogue hasn't built the carport the solar panels will be installed on top of.

On top of the electric company grants, the Open Door Churches had about $54,000 from the Oregon Department of Energy and $68,000 from the Energy Trust of Oregon — though that number is subject to change.

"That still leaves us about $130,000 short which we plan to raise by asking our congregations for donations," said David Cox, a church member who spearheaded the effort to bring solar power to the United Methodist locations. He has solar power at his home.

The total United Methodist project cost is estimated around $365,000, Cox said. "We want to have a little contingency just in case we encounter something unexpected during construction."

The Portland General Electric grants come as part of almost $1 million in awards through the electric company's Renewable Development Fund. Other awards were given in Portland, Gresham and elsewhere.

Cox, a civil engineer and former administrator of the Oregon Division of the Federal Highway Administration, said the goal is to have solar panels installed by spring 2020.

Participating churches are Keizer Clear Lake United Methodist Church, First United Methodist Church of Salem, Iglesia Metodista Unida Los Naciones, Morningside United Methodist Church and Trinity United Methodist Church.

Among the reasons the First United Methodist Church of Salem at 600 State St. was chosen is because it's centrally located and has a large kitchen, Cox said inside the office of Rev. Dan Pitney.

"In an emergency, if we had power we could run the refrigerators, we could cook the meals," he said. "Then, this church does have some capacity to house people."

'We're not helpless'

Concern over climate change, not just emergency preparedness, fueled the decisions by both the churches and the synagogue to go green.

Solar capacity is expected to cover almost all of the synagogue's power use, according to Portland General Electric. For the Methodist churches, the project aims to replace at least 50% of the group's power with solar energy, according to plans shared with the Statesman Journal.

"It's certainly rooted in our faith in terms of being good stewards of the environment and world," Pitney said.

Cox said he hopes solar power will catch on throughout Salem, and the United Methodists are willing to help other churches should they choose to go solar.

"We wanted a project that would really make a statement," Cox said. "We didn't want just a token project. We wanted a project that would make a difference."

The statement: "That we're not helpless."

Contact reporter Jonathan Bach by email at jbach@statesmanjournal.com or by phone at 503-399-6714. Follow him on Twitter at @jonathanmbach.