While Vatican City has been enjoying the advantages of  2,400 solar panels since last fall, the Catholic city-state is looking to move into the big leagues of solar with a 100-MW solar farm. Since Italy currently has about 440 installed megawatts of solar capacity, that represents a huge increase in the nation’s solar capacity. The solar farm would, in fact, be hugely superfluous to the Vatican’s needs, so a large portion of the electricity produced would be fed back into Italy’s national grid. The solar farm is planned for a multi-hundred-acre site near the Vatican Radio transmission center.

Since Italy’s solar incentive program is a feed-in tariff (currently EU$0.50/kWh), rather than a tax credit which one imagines the Vatican would not exactly benefit from, this is likely a canny investment decision. Of course, it’s also a great move for solar’s popularity–and for the Catholic Church’s green reputation.