Eni, Italian university to co-operate on energy transition
Italian energy company Eni has signed a framework agreement with a regional university to facilitate the energy transition, it said April 27.
Eni and the University of Padua – one of the oldest in the world – signed a three-year co-operation agreement, with a five-year extension option, that covers innovative research into solar energy and carbon capture, use and storage.
“We have signed a strategically important agreement that boosts the accomplishment of our 2050 decarbonisation targets,” Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi said. “This innovation-led co-operation sets the stage for overcoming the challenges that companies and civil society have to face through the development of technologies for the future of energy.”
The university rector Rosario Rizzuto said environmental stewardship is one of the philosophies underpinning its heritage. Simply by purchasing renewable energy, the campus has eliminated about 18,000 metric tons of CO2/yr.
“The agreement signed with Eni goes in the direction, crucial for us, of an even greater protection of the environment in which we live,” the rector said.
This is the second agreement Eni has reached on the energy transition so far this month. A letter of intent signed April 6 by Eni and Italian public transport company Ferrovie Nord Milano provides the framework for potential collaboration on ways to cut CO2 emissions from gas-powered vehicles.
Additional work would extend to capturing, storing and possibly using CO2 generated from the production of hydrogen for the transportation sector and a possible deployment of hydrogen distribution points. The EU has set carbon neutrality by 2050 as a goal.