Over the last three years, St Michael’s and All Angels have implemented ideas and projects that will support their church and community to care for creation.
Installing electric vehicle charge points
The church was undertaking a wider building and refurbishment project of parts of the church and the hall, which offered them the ideal opportunity to install electric vehicle charge points at the same time. Assessing the right option was quite challenging, especially in a rapidly changing market, and several evaluations had to be done at different stages.
The devices they chose were mounted on large, wooded posts, that allowed the points to be securely attached without risk of coming away when a charging cable is inserted and disconnected. They also required three-phase electricity, to enable a suitably fast charging time, and a stable broadband connection.
How do they work?
As the chur
ch owns the chargers outright, it means they can set the parameters for use – including user-time, how much to charge for electricity and so on. In this case, the driver connects to the charger via a QR code and then can set up the charging via their phone. An alternative model is to lease the charge points to a company, who then take responsibility for the installation, management and maintenance of the charge point. This model was adopted by Church House, which installed six electric charge points in 2022. [link]
St Michael’s and All Angels had support along the way from their electricians and builders who coordinated between themselves what was needed.
Alan Jarvis, PCC member for the church and driver of the project, commented:
“The electrician knew of all the network requirements and was familiar with going through the complications of adding the EV chargers to the EV charging network. As much as the public could use these, the car park is not a public one and so we have decided to only encourage our church users to use them.”
Energy efficiency
The church has also been working hard to implement the recommendations from their energy audit, which was first carried out in 2019. They have changed all of their lights over to LEDs, with a potential saving of over £1,500 a year, and they have also replaced their gas hot water heaters with electric water heaters.
An urban community garden for all
Finally, the church has been thinking carefully about how it can support wildlife and nature, even in a relatively urban environment, and facilitate an accessible community garden for people to enjoy. They have installed a water butt to collect rainwater, brought in three planters with flowers to mark the edge of a new ramp, and these planters were made from recycled plastic coke bottles – as were the new seats. Alan said,
“Another addition was to incorporate some planters and seating where the public can rest and cogitate…the purpose of this was to improve the environment for both the bees and humans.”
Our new downloadable resource ‘From energy audit to action’, provides a simple ‘how-to-guide’ for delivering the recommendations outlined in your audit report.
If your church has yet to have an energy audit, you can send an enquiry to the Environment Action Team.