Energy strategy is mission strategy.
SunSource partners with churches, congregations, and faith-based organizations to plan solar and battery storage around stewardship, ministry, resilience, and the people your community serves. The goal is not simply a system on the roof. It is a long-term energy plan that supports the mission for years to come and expands your vision and purpose.
Stewardship starts with what your resources make possible.
Church buildings support far more than a Sunday service. They host meals, recovery groups, classrooms, music, offices, outreach, and community gatherings. A thoughtful energy plan can protect more of the budget for that work while preparing the facility for the years ahead.
Protect the Ministry Budget
Lower energy costs can create more room for mission-driven programs that align with your values and expand your outreach.
Practice Long-Term Stewardship
Solar turns part of a recurring operating expense into infrastructure the congregation can plan around for decades to come. Congregations can better understand and anticipate utility costs, giving leadership a more reliable sense of what budgets may look like long into the future.
Build Resilience
Battery storage can help protect essential loads during outages, supporting lighting, refrigeration, communications, and a space your community can depend on.
A Ministry Decision Made Easy
Pastors, councils, vestries, trustees, finance committees, and facility teams need clear information. We build the project around your mission and purpose. SunSource is here as a partner in ministry, helping your leadership see how renewable energy can expand your congregation's purpose.
Strengthen Community Service
For churches that function as gathering places, kitchens, shelters, meeting spaces, and neighborhood resources, energy resilience can support the work happening far beyond worship.
Creation Care in Practice
As stewards of creation, we have a moral obligation to treat the land with dignity and respect. Renewable energy puts faith into action, helping create a cleaner, safer environment while supporting the community in moments of crisis. It is part of being a good neighbor.
A church project should make sense to the people responsible for carrying it forward.
A long-term energy plan goes beyond a one-time decision. SunSource sees itself as a partner in ministry alongside you. We help turn the technical work into a clear strategy your congregation can understand and steward over time.
Start With the Mission
We begin with what your church is trying to protect, fund, prepare for, and make possible over the next twenty years.
Understand the Facility
Utility bills, roof conditions, electrical infrastructure, building use, and resilience needs all shape the right system.
Build the Financial Plan
We evaluate Elective Pay, grants, capital priorities, project economics, and financing options, including relationships with denominational lenders when they fit the project.
Prepare the Decision
We help translate the project into information a council, board, vestry, finance committee, or congregation can evaluate with clarity.
Install and Activate
Permitting, utility coordination, procurement, construction, inspection, and commissioning are managed as one connected project.
Stay for the Long Term
Activation is the beginning of the system's life. We remain a partner as leadership, facilities, roofs, equipment, and energy needs evolve.
Celebrate the Milestone
When the system goes live, we help your congregation mark the moment and share its message in the way that fits best. That might be a blessing during worship, a shared meal, an open house, digital storytelling, or a quieter acknowledgment shaped by the congregation itself. The goal is to help the wider community see that the church is here for them.
Eligible tax-exempt churches can access a federal solar credit starting at 30%.
The base federal solar credit starts at 30%. Qualifying bonus-credit factors can increase the total, potentially up to 60%.
Elective Pay, often called Direct Pay, allows eligible tax-exempt organizations to receive the value of the federal solar credit as a direct payment rather than a credit against federal income tax. SunSource helps your congregation understand how the incentive fits the project, plan around the requirements, and keep the process organized alongside your tax and financial advisors.
SunSource includes tax professionals to help handle the Elective Pay tax paperwork for the congregation. That support is built into the project from the beginning, so church leadership is not left to navigate the filing process on its own.
How SunSource supports the process: we help your leadership understand the opportunity, structure the project around the applicable requirements, coordinate the financial plan, and work with the included tax professionals so the incentive process stays organized from planning through filing.
Understand What You May Qualify For
We explain the 30% base credit and help identify project factors that may support additional bonus credits, so leadership can understand the potential value before making a decision.
Plan the Project Around the Requirements
Project timing, equipment sourcing, registration steps, and required documentation are considered early and built into the project plan rather than handled at the end.
Build the Funding Strategy
We help connect the expected Elective Pay value with grants, capital priorities, financing, and denominational lending options when appropriate for the congregation.
Tax Professionals Included
Tax professionals are included in the SunSource church quote to help handle the Elective Pay tax paperwork, while SunSource keeps the project records and incentive documentation coordinated with the filing process.
General information, not tax advice. Eligibility, bonus-credit availability, and credit treatment depend on project timing, equipment sourcing, IRS requirements, site characteristics, and the organization's circumstances.
A church energy plan should answer more than a payback period.
The system may serve the congregation for decades. Before leadership votes yes, the plan should clearly answer what happens to the building, the budget, the incentive, and the ministry over time.
What happens when the roof needs work?
Plan for the roof before the solar design is finalized. If replacement is likely during the system's life, we account for timing, removal and reinstallation, and future capital needs up front.
Who services the system over time?
SunSource remains part of the service relationship after activation. We plan for monitoring, equipment support, and a clear path for maintenance over the life of the system.
How does Elective Pay actually reach the church?
The church receives the incentive after the project is placed in service and the required process is completed. SunSource helps organize project timing, sourcing, registration steps, and documentation alongside your advisors.
What will future leaders inherit?
A documented energy plan, not a project only the original committee understands. Future pastors, councils, trustees, and finance leaders should have system records, monitoring information, and a clear service path.
What if the building's use changes?
We design with expected ministry and facility changes in mind. New loads, schedule changes, property plans, and future improvements are considered before system sizing is finalized.
How does the project support the mission?
We connect the financial and resilience case to ministry outcomes. Leadership can see how predictable energy costs and backup capability may support the congregation's mission over time.
Every project is different. Production, savings, payback, financing, incentive value, and system design are preliminary until engineering review, the actual utility tariff, site conditions, and project structure are confirmed.
The environmental impact keeps growing with every project.
Across the SunSource portfolio, every completed system adds to a larger story of avoided emissions and long-term clean energy generation.
When the system goes live, your church decides how to share the milestone.
A solar project includes months of planning, engineering, approvals, and construction. Activation creates an opportunity to tell that story, but every congregation marks the moment differently. SunSource works with your church to shape the message and format around what feels right for its ministry and community.
Celebrate the Milestone
Choose what fits the congregation, whether that is a blessing during worship, a shared meal, an open house, digital storytelling, or a quieter acknowledgment.
Tell the Stewardship Story
Help members understand why the project matters, what it can make possible financially, and how it fits the congregation's long-term vision.
Bring the Community In
When the church wants to reach outward, invite neighbors, partners, local businesses, and families to see how the project supports ministry, stewardship, and service.
Coastside Lutheran Church
Coastside Lutheran Church opens its doors throughout the week for free community breakfasts, recovery meetings, nonprofit programs, rehearsals, worship, and shared community space. Its solar and battery system is designed to reduce operating costs while strengthening the church's ability to remain useful during coastal outages.
Read the Full Impact Story“The more money we can save, the more we can use in our ministries.”
Rev. Sue Holland, Pastor, Coastside Lutheran Church
Bethlehem Lutheran Church
Bethlehem Lutheran Church serves as a home base for recovery groups, meal programs, service organizations, and neighbors who rely on its space each week. The project helps reduce the utility costs competing with those programs and keeps more resources available for community service.
Read the Full Impact Story“Energy sovereignty means that we walk the talk. Having solar power helps us keep space use costs down and use the money we save on more meaningful missions.”
Marissa Nogleberg, Council President, Bethlehem Lutheran Church
A clear path from first conversation to an activated system.
Mission & Energy Review
We review utility bills, facility needs, and the goals your leadership wants the project to support.
Site & System Design
Engineering is built around your roof, electrical infrastructure, usage, resilience needs, and future plans.
Financial Planning
We evaluate Elective Pay, financing, grants, project economics, and the questions your decision-makers need answered.
Approvals & Construction
Permitting, utility coordination, procurement, installation, inspection, and commissioning are managed as one process.
Activation & Partnership
The system goes live, the congregation can celebrate the milestone, and SunSource remains a long-term energy partner.
Start with the mission. Build the energy plan around it.
Schedule a conversation with Casey or submit your information through our contact form. We will learn what your congregation is trying to accomplish and help you understand whether solar and battery storage fit this season of ministry.