Commercial Project

Solar + Roofing for Advent Lutheran Church in Morgan Hill, CA

Advent wanted to reduce their growing electric bill and find a solution for their growing church and school.

Project Details

Objectives

Advent wanted to reduce their growing electric bill and find a solution for their growing church and school. Over the past 10-15 years, Simmitri has been maintaining the Church’s tile roofs. Therefore it was important to the Church to make sure the roof’s integrity would be maintained through the solar installation process and beyond. They needed a nonprofit financing solution that would leverage the solar incentives to help lower their existing electricity rate.

About the Client

The Church’s Mission- Changed Lives, Changing Lives, Through Christ’s Love Advent developed a local charter school, Voices College Bound Academy, a dual immersion (Spanish-English) school, approached Advent about renting space for their inaugural year. The school grew out of a grassroots organizing effort of local Latino families who are seeking better educational options for their children. Current strategic planning has led the congregation to articulate our core values and expand mission outreach through a focus on Growing The Beloved Community in South County through service and the creative arts.

Challenges

The older tile roof posed some challenges. Since we were familiar with the roof, we made preparations to ensure solar integration maintained the integrity of the roof. The solar inverters and switchgear had to go in the school playground area so we had to coordinate around the school’s schedule while keeping schedules on target. Given the smaller size of the system, and the roof situation, we needed to ensure that the short-term and long-term economics was advantageous for Advent with a $0 out of pocket finance solution.

Simmitri’s Solution

Simmitri designed the solar roof attachment method to give two layers of protection in case the first one ever failed. We built in long term waterproofing by using a double flashings system. The first flashing sits on the roof deck below the tile and the second above the tile. The flashing that sits on the roof deck was sealed off with a Storm Guard leak-barrier providing a superior 20+ year seal. The top flashing was a specialty flashing that was fabricated to match the existing tile. Instead of making a hole in the tile, we replaced the entire concrete tile with this new metal tile flashing which provides a 25 year warranty. Solar systems have multiple incentives such as the 30% federal income tax credit, Federal MACRS and State MACRS. To take advantage of these incentives, nonprofits can be financed through Purchase Power Agreement’s (PPA’s). PPA’s guarantee a kwh rate for 20-25 years. PPA’s typically have a rate escalator of between 1- 1.9%. Setting a rate escalator has several benefits. While the PPA rate increases, it’s still often lower than the expected utility rate increase, providing a degree of protection against rising electricity costs. It also enables the starting rate to be lower which increases the feasibility of the project.