Vatican City has achieved a major milestone: becoming the world’s first country to run entirely on solar power, and the eighth to rely exclusively on renewable energy.
What makes this achievement particularly intriguing is how it was done: through the innovative use of agrivoltaics.
In line with the late Pope Francis’ vision, this smallest of sovereign states (just over 100 acres) is now fully solar-powered. Crucially, the city’s magnificent buildings remain untouched.
The energy is discreetly drawn from a massive agrivoltaic farm located on Holy See property at Santa Maria di Galeria, just outside Rome.
The Win-Win of Agrivoltaics
Agrivoltaics is the system of integrating agriculture and solar photovoltaic (PV) technology on the same land.
This arrangement offers a unique win-win scenario: clean energy for the Vatican and boosted yields for local crops.
While counter-intuitive to some, crops thrive under solar panels because they create a beneficial microclimate.
This shaded environment conserves water, shields plants from excessive sun, extreme weather (wind, hail), and mitigates soil erosion.
The result is cooler, milder, and overall more pleasant temperatures, leading to increased agricultural productivity alongside electricity generation.
The Vatican’s agrivoltaic farm spans over 1,000 acres—significantly larger than the country itself—and operates solely on this dual-use technology.
A Global Model
Vatican City joins seven other nations—Albania, Bhutan, Nepal, Paraguay, Iceland, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—that run on 100% renewable energy.
However, it is the first to achieve this solely through solar agrivoltaics.
The global potential is enormous. The economics strongly favor this approach: solar is the cheapest source of electricity in history (IEA), and farmers benefit from increased crop yields.
For instance, studies suggest that countries like Canada could eliminate fossil fuels from their grid by utilizing less than 1% of their existing farmlands for solar agrivoltaics.
The question is not if other countries can follow, but who will be next?
