ROLLS-ROYCE HOLDINGS PLC Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) and renewable diesel provide an array of advantages for fuelling the future of sustainable power. At Rolls-Royce, they offer the opportunity to bring our existing engines further towards achieving net zero.
To create HVO, waste vegetable and animal fats and used vegetable oils can be used as base materials and converted into hydrocarbons through a catalytic reaction with the addition of hydrogen. In this way, fats and vegetable oils can be used as a more sustainable fuel to either supplement or replace diesel completely.
HVO offers clean combustion with a reduction in particulate emissions of up to 80 per cent, nitrogen oxide emissions by an average of eight per cent and CO2 emissions by up to 90 per cent compared to fossil diesel. And because it's produced from renewable raw materials, its production, transport and combustion generate only about as many greenhouse gases as were absorbed by the plants during the growth of the biomass. If the fuels are produced with the help of renewable energy and green hydrogen through Power-to-X processes, CO2 emissions can be completely eradicated
Today, many of the engines developed by our mtu product and solution brand are already compatible with HVO. In fact, some existing rail engines can already be operated in a completely CO2-neutral manner.
This year, we released a series of rail engines ready for use with sustainable fuels including the mtu Series 1800, 1300 and 1500 - with the Series 1600 and 4000 to follow in the near future.
To ensure the best possible performance, we've been working with our partners DB Cargo and RDC Deutschland Group since 2021 to conduct a series of engine bench tests and operational trials. The results have been positive. "We were able to use HVO without any problems in our vehicles, without compromising performance and reliability," said Ali Dogru, Head of Assets and Maintenance at DB Cargo.
These advancements also have applications in the fields of construction, industry, agriculture and mining, where the use of paraffinic diesel fuels with the mtu Series 1000, 1100, 1300 and 1500 engines already enables almost CO2-neutral mobility.
For power generation, the Series 1600 and Series 4000 engines are already approved for use with sustainable fuels. "There is already a lot of interest in HVO in particular from many customers in the power industry and data centres who want to improve their carbon footprint," explains Tobias Ostermaier, president of the Stationary Power Solutions business unit at Rolls-Royce Power Systems. "The results from pilot customers show that our engines emit significantly less greenhouse gas and nitrogen oxide and particulate emissions when fuelled with HVO. Performance, on the other hand, does not suffer significantly," Ostermaier said.
At sea, mtu Series 2000 and 4000 engines are also on course to full approval for the use of synthetic fuels, thanks to years of successful HVO testing.
The Golden Gate Ferry shipping company in San Francisco has been trialling HVO in six of its ferries since 2019. After more than 41,000 operating hours, their engines have continued to perform equally well when using HVO compared to diesel in terms of maximum power, load response and fuel consumption. Jim Swindler, Managing Director of Golden Gate Ferry, is particularly pleased: " The visible smoke that was seen at the dock with conventional diesel has been reduced with the switch to HVO."
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Rolls-Royce Holdings plc published this content on 25 January 2023 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 26 January 2023 10:42:01 UTC.
