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Sugar Creek Lutheran Church – WI

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January 31, 2025

IRA incentives instill Wisconsin church’s faith in solar

Sugar Creek Lutheran Church in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, has been a gathering place for its rural community since 1849. The house of worship is nestled between a bean field, an apple orchard, and — since last month — a ground-mounted solar array. As part of their 175th-anniversary celebration this year, the congregation chose to invest in the financial future of their church by covering all of Sugar Creek’s electric needs for the next 25 years.

Pastor Dick Inglett has led the Sugar Creek congregation for the past decade and helped bring the solar project to life. He says the church considered going solar several years ago, but the upfront costs were too great. “We got the bid and we just said: that’s not something that we could do right now.”

In 2022, the idea resurfaced when a congregant who had installed solar on his farm informed Pastor Inglett and other church leaders about the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Before 2022, tax-exempt organizations like the church could not benefit from federal tax credits for solar because they do not pay taxes. Now, through an IRA provision called Direct Pay, tax-exempt entities can receive the equivalent amount of the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) as a direct payment from the federal government.

With the doors reopened, the congregation voted on whether to move forward with a solar project and received overwhelming support. “Our folks are very practical farmers … they’re independent people, and so they were able to see the benefit of having energy independence,” said Pastor Inglett.

To meet all of their energy demand, the church needed a 19.6 kilowatt (kW) system, which totaled $63,180. Through Direct Pay, they will save $16,254 on the cost of the system. The church anticipates an additional $5,418 in federal support through the domestic content bonus credit, which adds a 10% credit if a solar system is produced with materials manufactured in the United States. Both incentives are a product of the IRA.

The church had raised funds to cover the remaining costs, but after signing the contract for their solar system, they continued searching for additional funding opportunities to reduce upfront expenses — it proved to be a wise choice. They secured $6,500 from Solar for Good, a joint initiative sponsored by RENEW Wisconsin and the Couillard Foundation, along with an impressive $25,000 grant from the Hammond Climate Solutions Foundation’s Solar Moonshot Program, which helps nonprofits nationwide transition to clean energy. These grants, combined with the federal incentives, will lower the church’s cost to go solar by $53,172.

The new system is projected to save the church an average of $4,100 per year in energy costs. In the short term, these savings will reduce strain on their operating budget and support the church’s significant community-giving efforts. Recently, they donated $50,000 to establish Memory Matters, a county-run dementia care program, and another $50,000 to the local middle school to build an environmental lab.

Solar also represents an investment in the church’s future. “This congregation has resources now that we could [use to] pay for the electricity for the congregation for the next 25 years, and what a gift that we would be giving,” said Pastor Inglett. For a rural church like Sugar Creek, $4,100 in annual savings could one day mean the difference between continuing to serve the community and closing its doors.

The IRA served as the catalyst for the financial security and energy independence Sugar Creek will now enjoy. Access to federal incentives eliminated prohibitive upfront costs, making the solar project a practical investment that church members could easily support. With all of their newfound financial support, the church and their community can reap the benefits of distributed renewable energy — both now and in the future.