HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – Energy Alabama is hosting an energy bench-marking event for local churches and houses of worship. The event is specifically designed to help them cut back on utility costs.

Many churches around the Valley use a lot of energy throughout the week. Sometimes their design isn’t the most forgiving to energy efficiency.

“For a lot of these churches in our area, that are of sizable congregations, we’re talking tens of thousands of dollars and that’s nothing to sneeze at,” said Energy Alabama CEO, Daniel Tait. “You’d be surprised how much people actually do pay for energy.”

Churches can bring their bills and compare to the Department of Energy’s database to find out if there’s an opportunity to cut some costs.

“They’re still going to need an energy audit to find out exactly what it is, however, especially in churches, you can see a lot of issues with HVAC and controls because of those weird operating hours, high ceilings or humidity and things like that,” said Tait.

He says while the goal is to help churches cut back on costs, it’s just a perk of what else they can do with that money saved.

“We thought that churches would be a really good opportunity because they really want to reduce their overhead costs to spend more money in the community and doing good things helping people,” said Tait.