Pope receives solar panels for audience hall
Catholic Spirit, February 2008, In Our World
By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
A German solar company gave Pope Benedict XVI something special for Christmas: an electricity-generating solar rooftop for the Vatican’s Paul VI audience hall.
The Bonn-based SolarWorld is donating approximately 2,000 solar modules to be installed on the audience hall roof to provide “the very first solar power ever generated in the Vatican,” said a company press release.
The solar system will produce some 315,500 kwh of power a year, offsetting some 315 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, it said. Carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases that trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere and is seen as a major cause of global warming.
A press release said executives at SolarWorld read reports over the summer that the Vatican was planning to cool and heat its large Paul VI audience hall with solar panels.
The company’s CEO, Frank Asbeck, last year contacted Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, president of the commission governing Vatican City State, to propose supplying the solar-power system. To make sure the gift idea was feasible, Asbeck, his wife and their local priest then traveled to the Vatican last fall to look at the roof of the Paul VI hall, Asbeck told CNS in a Jan. 7 phone interview.
When the CEO saw his company could provide the appropriate equipment and install the solar panels aesthetically, “we made the technical offer” to provide the solar project as a gift, he said.
“With our gift we are paying tribute to the German pope. We support the commitment of the Catholic Church to a responsible use of the resources of creation,” Asbeck said in the Jan. 4 written statement.
The company said the Vatican recently accepted the gift on behalf of the pope.
Asbeck said in the statement that making the donation was “an obvious thing to do because Pope Benedict had lived in our Bad Godesberg Rhine quarter during his time in Bonn. We therefore feel very closely attached to him.”
Just a few years after Pope Benedict, then-Father Joseph Ratzinger, received a doctorate and a licentiate in theology from the University of Munich, he lectured at the University of Bonn, from 1959 to 1969.
Asbeck told CNS the company’s engineers will begin installing the solar modules this spring and they hope to have the complete system up and running before the summer.
The complete system, including solar panels and inverters that will feed the electricity directly into the Vatican’s power grid, is worth nearly $1.5 million, he said.
Once the system is installed “we only need someone to turn the key,” he said, adding that solar technology requires no maintenance or expert handling and will work trouble-free for the next 25 years.
The project’s installation and completion will be filmed and posted on the company’s Web site and be distributed to the media, he said.
The gift was made to coincide with the Jan. 6 feast of the Epiphany. In many European countries, people celebrate the day by exchanging gifts.
Asbeck said in the written statement: “If the three Wise Men from the East came to Bethlehem today, they would in all probability bring a solar cell in addition to gold, frankincense and myrrh. It is the symbol for the preservation of creation and for the energy supply of the future.”
Asbeck extolled the virtues of solar power, telling CNS that “it’s a free gift we get from heaven every day. There is no need to burn energy or to fight for oil” when there is solar power.