Germany: Benedictine monastery goes green

Abbey of the Missionaries of St Ottilien

The Benedictine Abbey of the Missionaries of St Ottilien, (Missionary Benedictines) in Oberbayern, Bavaria, has begun building a bio-gas plant which will enable the community to produce its own electricity, as well as selling power to the local community.

The abbey compound, which includes a high school with 770 pupils, a 120 bed guest house, the monastery building with about 110 monks, several workshops, a refectory, a printing press and a farm with 180 cows, consumes an annual 1/4 million kilowatt (kWh) of electricity.

The new plant is expected to produce an annual two million kWh of regenerated power. This means the monks will produce 150% of the power needed and save about 60.000 Euro every year in electricity costs.

With the new plant, which will produce heat using wood, grass, maize and sewage, all produced in the monastery grounds, and electrical power with other natural resources produced by in the grounds, the Benedictines will be producers of ecologically sustainable electricity and also active promoters of creation protection.

Besides Germany, the Missionary Benedictines have communities in South Africa, Korea and China. The abbey was suppressed in 1941 by the Gestapo. The monks returned in 1945. Until 1948 former concentration camp prisoners were looked after in the abbey.

Source: Fides