Moeve, ISFA launch pilot project using 100% renewable diesel in agricultural machinery
Moeve announced in October that it has reached an agreement with Iberian Smart Financial Agro, a leading European company in almond production and sustainable-farm management, to carry out a pilot project aimed at reducing emissions from heavy agricultural machinery.
The initiative will evaluate the use of 100 percent renewable diesel, also known as hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO), in farming operations.
HVO can be used in existing engines and reduces CO2 emissions by up to 90 percent over its entire lifecycle compared with conventional diesel.
The pilot, which began in June and will run for approximately six months, is being conducted on the farms ISFA manages in the municipality of Logrosán, Cáceres, in western Spain, covering an area of about 600 hectares.
During this period, Moeve will supply 15,000 liters (3,963 gallons) of 100 percent renewable diesel produced from organic waste to power a fleet of 12 agricultural vehicles: eight tractors and four harvesters.
Agricultural machinery accounts for 28 percent of ISFA’s carbon emissions.
This supply will avoid 43 metric tons of CO2 emissions and will help assess the performance of renewable fuels as a sustainable, immediately deployable alternative for hard-to-electrify sectors such as heavy-duty transportation, aviation and shipping.
“Reducing emissions from agricultural activity is a priority for advancing the energy transition, and it calls for immediate solutions that protect the sector’s competitiveness,” said Cristina Ballester, Moeve’s commercial director of clean energies. “Second-generation biofuels help us move toward that goal with an alternative that is already available and compatible with today’s engines.”
Iker Baron, a partner and the head of sustainability at ISFA, added, “Adopting second-generation biofuels is a great alternative for reaching our sustainability goals without having to replace our machinery in the short term.”
Renewable fuels such as HVO offer an immediate way to cut carbon emissions from transportation, because they are chemically equivalent to conventional fuels and therefore compatible with existing engines, Moeve stated.
In addition, second-generation biofuels promote the circular economy by giving a second life to waste materials such as agricultural residues or used cooking oil.
To secure access to 100 percent renewable diesel, Moeve and its partner Apical are moving forward with construction of a new second-gen biofuels plant in Huelva, Spain, which will become part of the largest second-generation biofuels complex in Southern Europe.
With a cumulative investment of 1.2-billion euros (USD$1.346 billion) and a flexible production capacity of 500,000 metric tons per year of HVO and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), Moeve said this facility is key to the company’s goal of leading the Iberian second-gen biofuels market with 2.5 million metric tons per year by 2030.
