Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and School is used to turning heavenward for the sunlight of the spirit, and with the completion of the largest installation of solar panels in Hermosa, Our Lady will begin using the sunlight itself for the lion’s share of its electricity.
The parish becomes the first in the Los Angeles Archdiocese – consisting of 302 parishes in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties – to convert to solar power, which is expected to produce 80 to 98 percent of the power used by the church and school near Prospect Avenue in the south part of town.
St. Cross by the Sea Episcopal Church completed a smaller solar installation two years ago.
The move to install 252 rooftop solar panels was made to save money and to “reduce our footprint on the Earth,” said Mike Parsons, a parishioner at Our Lady of Guadalupe who led the push for solar conversion along with Father Raymond Mallett.
The parish was inspired by a Vatican City decision to produce its power through solar energy, and by Cardinal Mahony’s use of solar panels in construction of the Los Angeles Cathedral.
The $180,000 cost of the conversion – after nearly $120,000 in rebates were obtained through Southern California Edison – was donated by the estate of Bill Vacek, longtime owner of the Poop Deck restaurant on the Strand, who passed away in 2008.
The project is expected to pay for itself in about nine years, and the solar equipment should last about 30 years, Parsons said.
The parish also reroofed the school, so the roof would last a long time as well, and made renovations to the friary. ER
