CCE Italia presents its first olive oil production made from olives produced in a photovoltaic field
CCE Italia has always been committed to integrating photovoltaics with agricultural activities. For this reason, today we are even more proud to present our first oil production originating from a photovoltaic project: organic extra-virgin oil from the plots of our photovoltaic project in Santa Lucia (Lazio, central Italy).
The first CCE oil production is obtained from the olives of the trees – belonging to the prized Canino variety – growing on the land that will host the photovoltaic plant we are building in Canino, in the locality of Santa Lucia (Viterbo province). The plant has a planned capacity of 14 MW and will supply energy to 7,583 families.
Since its beginning, the Santa Lucia solar park project has been combined with an agronomic plan to maintain the olive trees growing on the land that will host the panels. To let photovoltaic production and agricultural production coexist, the olive trees were moved – under the best conditions – to an area suitable for their growth and equipped with an irrigation system.
The olive trees from our Santa Lucia project belong to the Canino monocultivar, a variety typical of the Tuscia region (the north-western part of Lazio) and particularly valuable for this area. It is an ancient variety, already cultivated by the Etruscans, very resistant and able to adapt to soils and conditions that are hostile to other varieties. The oil obtained from it is an intense green colour with bright hues and a moderately spicy taste with a bitter note.
In the last months of 2024, we harvested the olives from our Santa Lucia trees, from which we obtained our first production of organic extra virgin olive oil. This first harvest took place in the framework of a national oil campaign that was greatly affected by climate change throughout Italy. Considering the increasing challenges faced by farmers, integrating agriculture and photovoltaics into agrivoltaics solutions adapted to the needs of farmers is becoming more and more important: agrivoltaics provide numerous solutions to respond to the effects of climate change, ensure a dual use of the land, and benefit local areas and their communities.
CCE Italia shared its approach to agrivoltaics here: Agrivoltaico: benefici, sfide e opportunità, la visione di CCE Italia