Venice experiments with hydrogen mobility, the fuel that releases only water vapor at the exhaust. This afternoon in Mestre, as part of the events organized for the 'Japan Week' by the Italy Japan Foundation, the Municipality and the Metropolitan City of Venice, Eni and Toyota signed an agreement to evaluate the construction of a hydrogen refueling station in the territory of the Municipality of Venice.
The agreement provides that, in the event of a successful conclusion of the feasibility study that will be immediately started, Eni will operate a hydrogen refueling station in one of the company's service stations located in the Venetian municipal area, which will be identified by December 31 2019, while Toyota will provide a fleet of 10 Mirai which will be supplied at Eni's refueling plant.
This agreement is part of the collaboration already started by Toyota, Eni, Municipality and Metropolitan City of Venice for the realization of an experimental project aimed at promoting sustainable and low-emission mobility in the Venetian territory, and marks a concrete step towards realization of a distribution network that allows the circulation of hydrogen powered vehicles.
"In Venice, one of the most resilient cities in the world - said the mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro - we started from the assumption that environmental sustainability is always coupled with the theme of economic resources. We want to show that attention to the environment must not be perceived as a cost for the community, but becomes a driving force for the circular economy. An example for Italy and Europe that is born in the productive and industrial heart of Porto Marghera. With Eni and Toyota we implement a public-private partnership that aims at research and innovation with a productive impact ".
"Hydrogen is a molecule that we already use in our activities - declares Giuseppe Ricci, Chief Refining & Marketing Officer of Eni - in particular in the bio refining cycle, mainly to remove oxygen from vegetable fillers, from used frying oils, animal fats and other waste with which we produce biofuels in Porto Marghera. We have also started to invest by studying technologies for its production starting from municipal solid waste and non-recyclable plastics, as well as for mobility, of which the agreement signed today represents an important milestone for a low carbon future. Hydrogen is an important step in Eni's decarbonisation process for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. With the hydrogen stations, Eni intends to further strengthen its offer of low environmental impact fuels: in a network of 4.400 plants, 3.500 supply Eni Diesel +, the diesel that contains the biofuel produced in the Venice biorefinery and recently also by that of Gela , while about 200 plants supply methane (of which 2 LNG) and soon also bio-methane ».
"Today is a very important day for the development of the hydrogen refueling infrastructure in Italy and we are proud to do our part together with Venice and with Eni, two excellent partners, who share sustainability goals and ideals with us - declares Mauro Caruccio, CEO of Toyota Motor Italia. We are convinced of the potential of hydrogen to favor the decarbonisation process of our society. On the path to zero-emission mobility, it will play a leading role and complementary to other electrified technological solutions. For this reason we started investing in the development of fuel cell technology beyond 20 years ago and in the 2014 we introduced Mirai, the first mass-produced hydrogen sedan, result of the continuous evolution of Toyota's hybrid-electric platform ".