From the Holy Roller to solar power: The Vatican City’s green initiatives

By Emma Peterson.

Following Pope Francis’ Fratello Sole motu propio, the Vatican City moves forward with the installation of more solar panels.

We all heard about the Popemobile (also called the Holy Roller) going green last year as part of his initiative to move towards zero carbon emissions, but you might not have heard about the other projects in the Vatican City for a greener future. Pope Francis announced these different projects in a motu proprio (an apostolic letter that is issued and personally signed by the pope on his own initiative) titled Fratello Sole, or Brother Sun.

The Brother Sun letter focuses on shifting the Vatican City’s power grid over to renewable, solar energy. In it, Pope Francis wrote, “It is necessary to transition to a sustainable development model that reduces greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, aiming for climate neutrality. Humanity possesses the technological means to tackle this environmental transformation and its pernicious ethical, social, economic and political consequences, with solar energy playing a fundamental role among these solutions.”

This is not only a continuation of Pope Francis’ commitment to a greener future (hallmarked by things like the Popemobile and the rehauling of the Vatican recycling system back in 2016), but also a continuation of the use of solar panels in the Vatican City. Back in 2008, Benedict XVI approved the installation of 2,400 solar panels on the roof of the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall. According to a report from National Geographic, this installation “powers the lighting, heating and cooling of a portion of the entire country.”

Now, with Pope Francis’ further commitment to green energy, more solar panels are appearing in the Vatican City, starting with the Courtyard of the Corazze entrance. The installation was done by Italian energy supplier ACEA in 2024. ACEA President Barbara Marinali spoke to EuroNews about the project, saying, “The most difficult thing is to integrate and find spaces to build photovoltaic infrastructure in places that are already heavily built up. This is an extraordinary example of how you can think, imagine and build a system that integrates with an infrastructure that already exists.”

In addition to the integration of solar panels in the Vatican City itself, these energy goals will be facilitated with the installation of solar panels in Vatican-owned properties outside of Rome. One of which is in Santa Maria di Galeria, which sits 11 miles outside of Rome. The plan is to create what is called an agrivoltaic system on that property, which is “a system where solar panels coexist with crops, livestock or both, such as by having panel arrays on top of greenhouses, interleaved among fields or elevated above them so they can still be used for agricultural purposes.”

With Pope Francis’ continued push towards a more energy efficient future with these projects, the Vatican City is set to “join Albania, Bhutan, Nepal, Paraguay, Iceland, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo to become one of just eight countries in the world to generate 100% of its electricity from renewable sources.”

Images sources in order of appearance: EuroNews (cover), EuroNewsWeekly and Vatican News