Venice, the capital of hydrogen: agreement signed between municipality, metropolitan city of Venice, Eni and Toyota

Venice Mestre, 5 September 2019 – Venice is experimenting with hydrogen-fuelled mobility, which only releases water vapour from exhausts. This afternoon in Mestre, as part of the events organised by Italy’s Japan Foundation for 'Japan Week', the Municipality and the Metropolitan City of Venice, Eni and Toyota signed an agreement to evaluate the construction of a hydrogen refuelling station in the Municipality of Venice.

If the feasibility study, which will begin immediately, is successful, the agreements states that Eni will set up a hydrogen refuelling station in one of the company’s service stations in the Venetian municipal area, which will be identified by 31 December 2019, while Toyota will provide a fleet of 10 Mirai which will be supplied to Eni's refuelling plant.

This agreement is part of an existing collaboration between Toyota, Eni, the Municipality and Metropolitan City of Venice, to implement an experimental project aimed at promoting sustainable and low-emission mobility in the Venetian region. It marks a concrete step towards creating a distribution network that enables the circulation of hydrogen powered vehicles.

"In Venice, one of the most resilient cities in the world,” said Luigi Brugnaro, the mayor of Venice, “we started from the assumption that environmental sustainability is always coupled with the theme of economic resources. We want to show that caring for the environment should not be perceived as a cost for the community, but as a driving force behind the circular economy. This is an example for Italy and Europe, that was conceived in the productive and industrial heart of Porto Marghera. With Eni and Toyota, we will implement a public-private partnership to further research and innovation, which will have a tangible impact.”

 “Hydrogen is a molecule that we already use in our activities,” said Giuseppe Ricci, Eni's Chief Refining & Marketing Officer, “particularly in the bio refining cycle, where it is mainly used to remove oxygen from plant materials, waste cooking oils, animal fats and other waste we use to produce biofuels in Porto Marghera. We have also started investing in studying technologies to produce hydrogen from solid urban waste and non-recyclable plastics, as well as mobility. The agreement signed today is an important milestone for a low carbon future. Hydrogen is an important part of Eni's de-carbonisation process to reduce climate-changing gas emissions. These hydrogen stations will allow Eni to strengthen its ability to offer low environmental impact fuels: In a network of 4,400 plants, 3,500 supply Eni Diesel +, the diesel fuel that contains the biofuel produced in the Venice biorefinery and another one in Gela, while around 200 plants supply methane (2 of which are LNG) and will soon supply bio-methane ».

"Today is a very important day for the development of hydrogen refuelling infrastructure in Italy, and we are proud to play our part, together with Venice and with Eni, two excellent partners, who share our sustainability goals and ideals,” stated Toyota Motor Italia’s CEO, Mauro Caruccio. “We are convinced of hydrogen’s potential to advance decarbonisation processes in society today. It will play a leading role in the path to zero-emission mobility and will complement other electrified technological solutions. For this reason, we began investing in the development of fuel cell technology over 20 years ago, and in 2014, we introduced Mirai, the first mass-produced hydrogen sedan, which was the result of continuous evolution at Toyota's hybrid-electric platform."