(lighthearted music) - Storms will test your day!

(audience clapping hands) - Yes!

- Yes!

- I'm a preacher that preaches hope.

And when I look at the climate conditions, what I see is climate anxiety, (fire sizzling) which is the exact opposite of hope.

- [Raeann] In the face of climate change, a historic church in Utah is working to turn hope into action.

- Our motto was, Calvary Baptist Church securing energy for future generations.

- [Raeann] So what's this congregation doing to get more eco-friendly?

- [John] So we thought, "Why not take a chance?"

- [Raeann] And are those changes actually helping?

- I think that we all have a role to play in creating a cleaner climate.

- I'm PBS Utah's Raeann Christensen.

Find out how Utah is innovating energy production.

This is Utah's Power Pivot.

(gentle music) Nestled in the mountains of Salt Lake City, Utah, Calvary Baptist Church is leading the way on sustainability.

They recently installed solar panels and upgraded its lighting to more energy-efficient LEDs.

That's part of the church's commitment to a cleaner, greener future.

The reverend, Dr. Oscar Terrance Moses, hopes their efforts are just the beginning, inspiring the whole community to change.

- I think that it's incumbent upon the church to get involved because there's clearly a problem.

- Calvary Baptist teamed up with Utah Clean Energy to make all of this happen.

- Cost of the project was the $351,000, but we got a grant to cover 80% of that cost.

We thought it was worth our time to convert the lights, the solar panels, and the control units.

- [Raeann] I'm chatting with John Robertson, and he's the money guy at Calvary Baptist.

He gave me the inside scoop on all the energy upgrades they've done.

- But when we want full effect, we turn on all of the lights, and we get the big ambiance from those big bulbs up there.

- And these are all energy efficient?

- [John] And these are all energy efficient.

Now, once we did the conversion, we converted the lights and of course we have the solar system that is energizing it, so it works wonderful.

- So all of this is powered by the solar?

- All of this is powered by the solar, and what a savings it is for us.

(bright upbeat music) 'Cause we have 466 solar panels on the roof, and we've been utilizing it since 2021.

And I notice a substantial decrease in our monthly bills.

We used to average around $3,600 a month in just the utility bill, the light bill.

Right now, we're right around 1,100.

- [Raeann] That's a ton of money to save for just a few changes, - Yeah, ton of money.

- The church's green upgrades aren't just saving money, they're also shrinking their carbon footprint big time.

In 2022, the energy produced from Calvary's new solar panels alone was more than 5,400 kilowatt hours.

And by using all that clean solar energy, they reduced their carbon dioxide output by around 7,300 pounds.

- [John] To break it down even better, 5,467 kilowatt hours of renewable energy, that's enough renewable energy to brew 65,867 pots of coffee.

(coffee pouring) That's a lot of coffee.

(laughing) - [Raeann] That's a lot of coffee.

But these energy savings go beyond the church's physical location.

They're bringing their congregation members along for the ride with free upgrades, like attic insulation or smart thermostats.

Many people don't even know about these incentives or rebates offered by power and gas companies, even though they could help save them money.

Calvary Baptist gets major props for rallying their community to actually take advantage of the upgrades.

♪ Jesus ♪ Light in dark If you've been to Utah, you may have noticed some gunky, unhealthy air at times.

Where most Utahans live is called the Wasatch Front, and that's surrounded by mountains.

This is basically like a bull that just traps all that bad air.

When people don't use these incentives, that ends up putting more pollutants into the air, and none of us want that.

- There's some health issues, so we wanna stay healthy.

I've lived in this state long enough to know that we get those inversions where, and in some of us older individuals, they don't want us even to go outside.

The incentive is for there to be clean air for everyone.

It helps our children, our future generations, and our responsibility to this world that God created.

- [Raeann] Utah Clean Energy crunched the numbers and found out that the home upgrades are saving about 31,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year.

John told me that's over $200 in savings for each household.

And here's the craziest part.

Together, the church and home improvements are expected to slash their carbon dioxide output by 130 tons per year.

That's the same amount of carbon a gas guzzling car gives off over a 300,000-mile drive.

- Yeah, I think that they feel as though they're doing their part; however small or minimal it might be.

I think that they're, we feel as though we're doing our role to help create a cleaner climate.

And so whether it's the changing over of light bulbs to LED, whether it's changing out from the old thermostats to smart thermostats.

And so I think it gives us some ownership in helping creating a healthy climate.

- [Raeann] What Calvary Baptist has achieved so far is really inspiring.

It just goes to show what can happen when people unite around a common goal of being environmentally aware.

- And so I think that no matter who you are, whatever role you can do, I think, it's critical that you do something to help impact our world.

- I think that's really good.

(laughing) I got chills.

It was almost as though... - Ah.

That was really great.

- (laughing) Thank you.