Volkswagen Group Spanish subsidiary Seat said it would participate, until 2023 in the Life Landfill Biofuel project, which was recently approved by the European Commission (EC). The goal is to obtain renewable gas from municipal landfills and achieve more efficient management by obtaining biomethane from an indigenous, abundant energy source.
The project will be developed with other partners for the next four years and has an overall budget of EUR4.6m, of which the EC will fund 55%.
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Seat claims to offer the largest compressed natural gas (CNG) powered vehicle range of any European carmaker (two Leon models, Ibiza and Arona, all built in its Martorell plant). In 2018 it tripled sales of CNG vehicles and announced a EUR6m spend to expand daily capacity for gas fuelled vehicles from 90 to 250.
Andrew Shepherd, in charge of the automaker's renewable gas projects, said: "This project will enable us to make headway in the development and research into biomethane as a fuel.
"Our ultimate aim is to guarantee zero environmental impact for CO2 emissions in the entire life cycle of vehicles."
Seat is currently working on the Life Methamorphosis project to obtain biomethane from previously selected waste and animal slurry from a farm in Lleida. The new Life Landfill Biofuel project is a step further as the raw material originates directly from the landfill, without prior separation.
The European Union will limit to 10% the amount of municipal waste that can be dumped in landfills by 2035. For this reason, converting waste into vehicular biofuel is one answer to this environmental challenge, Seat said.
Other organisations also participating in this new project include FCC, Iveco, the University of Granada, the Cartif Foundation, Sysadvance and Gasnam.
Seat has also developed a similar project with Aqualia to convert waste water into biofuel.
The automaker said there are around half a million landfill sites in Europe so the development and research into the operating procedures to obtain biomethane from waste represents a business opportunity to convert waste into a source of energy, which at the same time would contribute to lowering environmental emissions.
"There is great potential in establishing certificates of origin for the production of biomethane. This system would facilitate the development of the industry in Spain, as it is being done in other EU countries, and being able to transfer these certificates among sectors would open up several opportunities to the transport industry."
Year to date, Seat has increased sales of CNG vehicles in Europe by 13% year on year to 11,800 units.
It is also the VW group's 'centre of excellence' for the technological development of CNG.
