Venice, 9 March 2018 – Venice is embodying the circular economy as it takes used cooking oil from its citizens and transforms it into biofuel for public transport.
Eni and the City of Venice, together with the AVM Group and Veritas, have signed an agreement to launch a large-scale experimental project based on the use Eni Diesel+ in part of its public transport fleer. Eni’s new fuel is 15% renewable and will be supplied to the Venetian public transport company at the same cost as traditional diesel.
The trial will run for seven months, from 1 April to 31 October 2018. All the vessels of the AVM/Actv fleet, which currently run on traditional diesel fuel, will use the new fuel, the vegetable part of which is produced in Porto Marghera, where Eni has converted a conventional refinery into a bio-refinery. The bio-refinery, the first of its kind in the world, is able to transform raw materials of biological origin, including used vegetable oils and animal fats, into high quality biofuels.
The agreement means that Veritas, the multi-utility company which collects, enhances and processes waste in the Venice area, will, after purification, send the domestic frying oil it collects to the Eni bio-refinery in Venice, facilitating the valorisation of consumption waste.
To test the results of reduction in polluting emissions from Eni Diesel+, a Euro 3 bus was used at Eni’s laboratories in Milan. Eni carried out tests in collaboration with and under the supervision of the Istituto Motori of the CNR in Naples, aimed at validating the positive impact of the use of Eni Diesel+. Laboratory tests have shown a reduction in polluting emissions, in particular nitrogen oxides, as well as ultrafine particles, in addition to lower consumption, due to the high calorific value of the fuel’s biological component.
For the first time tests on marine engines will be carried out during the experimentation phase in Venice: an engine of a vaporetto running on the new diesel will be subjected to bench tests to analyse the emissions and consumption carried out by AVM/Act (using a test protocol of the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) and by the Istituto Motori of the CNR of Naples for Eni.
