Every year, millions of visitors walk the ancient streets of Pompeii, admiring its frescoes and ruins. Few notice the solar panels on the roof of the Villa of the Mysteries — because they are designed to look exactly like Roman tiles.
“On one side, it looks just like an ancient Roman tile. But if we look at it from behind, we can see that it is actually a small photovoltaic panel,” said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Pompeii Archaeological Park. The installation generates enough electricity to light the villa and cover a large share of the site’s energy needs.
Pompeii is now considering extending the technology to other areas of the park that are far from the electricity grid. Meanwhile, the Portuguese city of Évora is pursuing a similar approach. On the rooftop of its city hall, some shingles appear slightly lighter than the rest. “They are not normal shingles,” explained Humberto Queiroz, project manager at the EDP R&D Centre. “They are made of a semi-transparent epoxy material with solar cells embedded in the middle, which generates electricity for the building’s self-consumption.”
Heritage and Decarbonisation: A Delicate Balance
Évora’s historic centre has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986. The city is part of the European project POCITYF, which tests ways to reconcile heritage preservation with modern sustainability goals. “Évora is a World Heritage city and, like most historic cities across Europe, it has the responsibility to preserve its historic centre and safeguard its cultural heritage,” said Nuno Bilo, EU project coordinator at Évora Municipality. “However, it cannot remain frozen in time. We also need to move forward and find solutions that enable historic cities to address one of today’s greatest challenges: decarbonisation.”
The photovoltaic shingles on the city hall have a capacity of around 20 kWp and are designed to blend into the building’s landscape architecture. Other solutions being tested in Évora include glass roofs with integrated photovoltaic panels and solar canopies in school courtyards. Together with the Dutch city of Alkmaar, Évora is evaluating these innovations for potential replication across Europe.
One of the key technologies comes from Dyaqua, a small family-owned company based in north-eastern Italy. Matteo Quagliato described the manufacturing process: “The tile is made from a resin compound that forms the first layer. We then take the photovoltaic cells, which have already been soldered beforehand, and place them inside. After that, a second layer is added, made from a specially formulated compound. The final step is lowering the mould and removing the finished product: a resin tile containing the photovoltaic cells.”
Zuchtriegel sees Pompeii’s experience as a proof of concept for the entire world. “The lesson Pompeii offers is that if this technology can work here, in a place that is so delicate, so closely monitored, so fragile, and so vast, then it can work anywhere,” he said.
These efforts come as Europe pushes for greater renewable energy adoption, even in sensitive locations. For more on how solar is transforming other sectors, see our report on solar-powered cold storage boosting African farmers' incomes. And for a broader look at solar trends across the continent, read about plug-in solar panels surging across Europe.
The success of invisible solar in Pompeii and Évora sends an encouraging message: heritage preservation and sustainability are not mutually exclusive. As more historic cities seek to cut carbon emissions, these technologies offer a path forward that respects the past while embracing the future.
