Coastside Lutheran Church
“The More Money We Save, the More We Can Use in Our Ministries.”
Solar and battery storage help Coastside Lutheran Church lower costs, protect essential programs, and prepare to serve during outages.
In Half Moon Bay, California, Coastside Lutheran Church is a small congregation with a large community footprint.
Each week, the church opens its doors for worship, free community breakfasts, recovery meetings, rehearsals, nonprofit programs, and shared space for another congregation. The building may be modest, but the ministry running through it is anything but.
For Coastside Lutheran, solar was never just about lowering an electric bill. It was about creating more room for service, strengthening resilience during coastal power outages, and making sure the church could continue showing up for its neighbors when the community needs it most.
“We’re a small organization, but we have a big impact. We use the gifts we have for the benefit of the whole town.”
Rev. Sue Holland, PastorA small church with a big role on the coast.
About 30 miles south of the Golden Gate Bridge, Coastside Lutheran serves Half Moon Bay and the surrounding coastal communities from Pescadero to Santa Cruz.
With around 60 members and a regular Sunday congregation of about 30, the church has become part of a broader network of local service, faith, and nonprofit activity.
Pastor Sue describes the Coastside community as generous, connected, and collaborative. Nonprofits, churches, volunteers, and neighbors know each other, work together, and show up when there is a need.
The building is active throughout the week.
On Wednesday and Thursday mornings, Coastside Lutheran’s kitchen becomes a gathering place. Volunteers prepare sausages, pancakes, eggs, toast, oatmeal, orange juice, and coffee for community members who come to eat, gather, and take food home.
In a typical week, the church serves roughly 130 to 160 meals. The kitchen also supports HOPE Services, a nonprofit that teaches cooking and life skills to developmentally disabled adults.
The church also hosts AA meetings, rehearsals for the Coastside Pride Chorus and Coastside Community Orchestra, and another congregation that worships in the space.
That kind of community use depends on power. Commercial refrigeration, kitchen appliances, lighting, internet, gathering spaces, and shared facilities all carry real energy costs. They also become vulnerable when the grid goes down.
Lower bills were only part of the vision.
For Coastside Lutheran, the case for solar was tied directly to the realities of coastal California.
Power lines cross the mountains. Storms can take down trees. Outages can interrupt power and internet. In those moments, the church wanted to be more than a building waiting for service to be restored.
They wanted the ability to remain useful.
“If we got solar, got batteries, we would have our own source of energy.”
Rev. Sue HollandLower operating costs
Solar helps reduce monthly utility expenses, freeing more resources for meals, ministry, outreach, and long-term planning.
Backup power
Battery storage helps protect essential operations when storms, outages, or grid disruptions affect the coast.
Community resilience
The church can plan for a future role as a place for hot coffee, warm meals, charged phones, and familiar support during emergencies.
A practical project with a long-term purpose.
The path to solar started with a practical need: the church also needed a new roof.
A denominational grant helped Coastside Lutheran move forward with the roof replacement, which opened the door for the solar and battery project to move ahead without a capital campaign.
At a synod assembly in 2024, Pastor Sue met SunSource and later followed up when the church began seriously considering solar. Before making a decision, she spoke with another SunSource partner that had already completed a project and was returning for additional work.
“If they were a repeat customer, SunSource must be a good organization. That sold us.”
Rev. Sue HollandOnce the system was designed and approved, the equipment installation itself moved quickly. The longer part of the process involved inspections, utility approvals, and navigating site-specific requirements for the batteries and shutoff locations.
The savings are not the point. The mission is.
After activation, Pastor Sue found herself excited to receive the church’s first electric bill with solar generation included.
“It was significantly less than it had been before.”
Rev. Sue HollandThe lower monthly cost is important. But the deeper value is what those savings make possible.
For a small church, every dollar matters. Reduced energy expenses mean more flexibility for meals, ministry, outreach, and long-term planning.
“The more money we can save, the more we can use in our ministries.”
Rev. Sue Holland
Prepared to serve when the power goes out.
Coastside Lutheran is now thinking beyond monthly utility savings.
The church has started exploring how its solar panels and batteries could support the community during emergencies, including storms, power loss, earthquakes, or other disruptions.
The congregation has already logged its solar and battery system as a resource in county emergency planning conversations. Church members have also been discussing how they might coordinate with emergency response personnel and local CERT teams.
The vision is simple and practical: a place where neighbors can come for hot coffee, a warm meal, a charged phone, a working outlet, and a familiar community presence when the power goes out.
Think beyond today’s utility bill.
“Dream big ahead of time, so you have enough capacity and capability.”
Rev. Sue HollandFor other churches, nonprofits, and mission-driven organizations considering solar, Pastor Sue’s advice is to think beyond current usage and plan for what the organization may need down the road.
That long-range thinking is exactly what makes solar and storage more than a facility upgrade. It becomes part of a community’s future capacity.
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