When it comes to driving down carbon emissions, one leading fuel distributor is showing the way.
Certa have transitioned their fleet of delivery vehicles in its Letterkenny depot from running on diesel to Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO).
The move will see Certa’s national fleet of over 100 trucks run on the biofuel by the end of March following a successful trial in 2022.
Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) fuel, as the name suggests, is produced from waste plant matter, and emits no new carbon into the atmosphere. Compared with regular diesel, HVO offers a reduction in carbon emissions by up to 90%.
Collectively, Certa’s fleet travels over 3,000,000 km annually and the switch to HVO is the equivalent of reducing its fleet to 9 trucks in terms of carbon emissions output.
Part of the DCC Energy Group, Certa distributes heating oil from 22 depots across Ireland as well as supplying commercial fuels to a wide range of businesses nationwide. In 2022, the company started to supply hydrotreated vegetable oil to a range of sectors in Ireland as a sustainable alternative fuel to regular diesel.
Since the beginning of the initiative, Certa have helped some of Ireland’s largest events go fossil-free including Electric Picnic, The National Ploughing Championships and the Irish Open.
Cormac Durnin, Operations Director for Certa Ireland said “While we are working with numerous commercial customers to help drive down their carbon emission through renewable fuels, we’re particularly excited to be fuelling our own fleet of over 100 trucks with HVO. The transition was seamless, we had no retrofitting on our vehicles to do.“
He continued “All our delivery depots are carefully selected and situated within the hearts of their communities which enables us to reduce our kilometres travelled and in turn our emissions. We’ll continue to invest in a dedicated HVO infrastructure for each depot while our ‘Greener HGV’ driver training program is also aimed at further reducing our carbon footprint. It is not only about changing our fuel type, but reducing kilometres travelled.”
Speaking at the launch of Certa’s HVO-fuelled fleet, Andrew Graham, Managing Director, said “Our transition to HVO fuel for our fleet shows our commitment and belief in HVO as a viable, commercial diesel alternative. We’re very proud to be one of the first Irish companies to make the switch and hope to encourage wider adoption.”
He continued “We’re only beginning to scratch the surface of HVO and in addition to repurposing fleets we’re also delighted to be supplying HVO to help tech companies power their data centres which aids them in minimising their impact on the national energy grid.”
