Parishioners at St Luke's Catholic Church, Pinner, in the Diocese of Westminster have applied to Harrow Council to install 40 solar panels on the roof of their church.
St Luke’s intends to use the south-facing roof to harness the sun’s energy, and parishioners hope it will be approved in time for a much needed cash grant.
“If we do manage to get them installed, we would be one of the first churches in this diocese and one of the first in the country to have solar panels. We have taken our cue from head office as it were, as the Vatican is installing a huge system. We are trying to have respect for our natural resources,” said Canon Robert Plourde, the parish priest.
Permission has been granted by the Diocese of Westminster.
The panels will be barely visible from any angle.
The application needs to be approved and the panels installed by December 8 so entry into the feed-in-tariff scheme, which gives a lucrative rate for the church selling the energy back to the national grid, can be applied for before the deadline on December 12.
The ‘head office’ project that Canon Plourde referred to was the Vatican, where workers began installing solar panels on the Paul VI auditorium's roof in November.
The building is used for the Pope's weekly audience when it cannot be held outdoors and the hall's deteriorating tiles are being replaced with 2,700 solar panels that will convert sunlight into electricity, to light and heat, or cool, the 6,000-seater hall.
This is a project close to the heart of Benedict XVI who has spoken of, “the unbalanced use of energy" in the world, and stated that environmental damage is making, "the lives of poor people on earth especially unbearable.”
Surplus energy generated may be fed into the Vatican's power network in the future and the project could save up to 70 tonnes of oil every fortnight.
The panels, worth approximately $1.5m, were donated by a Bonn-based company, Solar World.
The diocese of Westminster’s recently published Yearbook 2012 reveals what has been called the Benedict Bounce, as Sunday Mass attendance has increased since the Pope’s visit to the Britain.
The yearbook statistics show that mass attendance in the diocese has increased by nearly 3,000 between October 2009 and October 2010.
The annual Mass count takes place in October each year, and in 2010, occurred shortly after the visit of Pope Benedict XVI.
The Mass count for 2010 was 158,574 compared to 155,880 in 2009. Other parish statistics for 2010 also show an increase in baptisms, receptions into the Church and marriages.