Reducing CO2 emissions from vans

Within the framework of activities undertaken by the European Commission aimed at a containment of CO2 emissions, the main variable of climatic changes on the planet, new rules have been introduced in the Community’s legislation with the purpose of regulating the amounts of carbon generated by fleets of vehicles currently operating in Europe, with weight up to 3.5T – cat. VAN N1.

The new rules require the owners of vehicle fleets to remain within the limits of 175g CO2 / km by 2017, with a further gradual reduction down to 147 g/km by 2020, as calculated from the average emissions of an entire fleet.

The average, expressed in excess amounts of CO2 will already be calculated starting from 2014, on the total average for all the vehicles in the company’s name.

Penalties will vary from a minimum of 5 euros for every excess gram, up to 95 euros/g.

(The whole rule is downloadable from the EC site:

http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/vehicles/vans)

CO2 containment is therefore becoming an extra cost on services that can heavily affect the general economy of the company.

Within this context the LIFE Environment Programme has promoted the co-funding of the H2Power Project, which is able to drastically reduce vehicle emissions starting from homologateEuro3 and previous ones.

This system has been developed within a consortium with participation of companies and Universities, which has seen the Council of Perugia as its main promoter, and has involved engineers, technicians and researchers for three years of experimentation both in the engine laboratory of the Industrial Engineerng labs of the University of Perugia and on road tests on an urban circuit by implementation on a demonstration van.

The tested retrofit is able to add a certain quantity of hydromethane (30% – 35% H2 + CH4), in the fuel aspiration section of the engine, such as to obtan a smooth and complete combustion of the fuel.

The tests have shown a significant reduction of CO2 (from a minimum of 20% up to 48%) with a consequent reduction of original fuel of around 18%.

We would like to invite anyone interested to consult the technical documentation freely available on site < H2Power.it  > or to get directly in touch with us.