Cross-shaped solar array lights up Mundelein Seminary for New Year

The Christmas star shining over Mundelein, Illinois, this season was the sun, as a 300-kilowatt solar energy project went into commercial operation Dec. 25 on the campus of the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary.

The project was inspired by Pope Francis' encyclical "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home," as well as by Cardinal Blase Cupich, who as leader of the Chicago Archdiocese has stressed the importance of energy efficiency, university president and seminary rector Fr. John Kartje told EarthBeat.

It is the first solar energy generating plant on a U.S. Catholic seminary campus and the first in the Chicago Archdiocese, according to a statement from the university.

Because the once-rural campus includes some 1,300 acres of land, and solar technology has become both more economical and more efficient, Kartje and other administrators decided to look seriously at the possibility that the school could generate some of its own power.