{"id":19507,"date":"2025-09-18T20:28:47","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T00:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/?page_id=19507"},"modified":"2025-09-19T00:09:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T04:09:27","slug":"solar-success-stories-in-needham","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/solar-success-stories-in-needham\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar Success Stories in Needham"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>First Parish in Needham, Unitarian Universalist<\/strong><strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/First-Parish-Solar-pic.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-19526 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/First-Parish-Solar-pic-300x177.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"177\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/First-Parish-Solar-pic-300x177.png 300w, https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/First-Parish-Solar-pic-768x454.png 768w, https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/First-Parish-Solar-pic-560x331.png 560w, https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/First-Parish-Solar-pic-150x89.png 150w, https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/First-Parish-Solar-pic.png 832w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>38 solar panels installed in 2013<\/li>\n<li>192,000 kWh of electricity produced\u00a0to date<\/li>\n<li>First house of worship in Massachusetts to earn an energy Star rating for superior energy efficiency<\/li>\n<li>The panels\u00a0 cover about half of the yearly usage. The church has signed up for Needham Power Choice 100% Green for the balance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Carter Memorial <\/strong><strong>United Methodist Church<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>146 solar panels installed in 2019<\/li>\n<li>301,000 kWh of electricity produced to date<\/li>\n<li>The church has converted from oil heat to a heat pump\/high efficiency gas boiler system<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The Needham Channel<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>36 solar panels installed in 2015<\/li>\n<li>118,321 kWh of electricity produced to date<\/li>\n<li>They have begun to switch to heat pumps for energy efficient air conditioning<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Volante Farms<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>51 solar panels installed in 2019<\/li>\n<li>41,860 kWh of electricity produced each year<\/li>\n<li>10,000-gallon rainwater collection tanks collect water for plants<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Christ Episcopal Church\u00a0<\/strong><strong>of Needham<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>123 solar panels<\/li>\n<li>Installed in 2014 and in 2015<\/li>\n<li>Panels produce <u>more<\/u> electricity than the church uses. Church members buy the extra electricity<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The Congregational\u00a0<\/strong><strong>Church of Needham, UCC<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>68 solar panels installed in 2024<\/li>\n<li>35,400 kWh expected yearly production<\/li>\n<li>The church has achieved the highest Green Congregation designation, Level 4, from the United Church of Christ.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Temple Aliyah<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>260 solar panels installed in 2017<\/li>\n<li>673,000 kWh produced to date, providing 90% of the electricity use<\/li>\n<li>The array has avoided 404 tons of CO2 emissions to date.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Temple Beth Shalom<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>297 solar panels installed in 2019<\/li>\n<li>879,500 kWh produced to date<\/li>\n<li>For the electricity use not covered by the solar panels the Temple buys power from a community solar project.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Sunita Williams School<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>425 solar panels installed in 2019<\/li>\n<li>779,000 kWh of electricity produced as of Sept. 19, 2025<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That number translates to 467 tons of CO2 have been avoided, enough to offset 68,785 gallons of gasoline<\/p>\n<p><strong>Solar at the Recycling and Transfer Station<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>11,780 panels installed in 2016<\/li>\n<li>36,794,000 kWh produced as of Sept. 18, 2025<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The array produces the equivalent of about 25% of the electricity used by all Town facilities in a year.<\/p>\n<p>It is saving the Town millions of dollars. The reported annual savings for just the year 2024 was over 1 million dollars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First Parish in Needham, Unitarian Universalist 38 solar panels installed in 2013 192,000 kWh of electricity produced\u00a0to date First house of worship in Massachusetts to earn an energy Star rating for superior energy efficiency The panels\u00a0 cover about half of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19507","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19507"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19536,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19507\/revisions\/19536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}