Introducing Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) fuel in bin lorries

Having a large vehicle fleet comes with issues around fuel spending and its impact on the environment. How can a council move forward with reducing the carbon footprint of the large, previously diesel-fuelled vehicles in its fleet, such as bin lorries? Perth and Kinross Council explains their approach in this article.

Perth and Kinross Council, in line with its commitment to respond to the climate emergency affecting the local area and Scotland as a whole, decided in 2024 to test the potential of a cleaner alternative to standard diesel: Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil or HVO.

Background

Perth and Kinross covers an extensive geographical area with many rural communities, and the Council delivers services, including waste and recycling collections, to over 150,000 residents, businesses and organisations.

Bearing this in mind and with a limited range of options available for reducing CO2 emissions, the use of HVO was considered a straightforward way for the Council to achieve significant carbon savings. Current Fleet Manager, Pat Taggart, had prior experience of using Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) at Falkirk Council and had immediately identified the potential for HVO as an alternative to standard diesel in the Perth and Kinross Council heavy fleet.

What is Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO)?

HVO is produced from 100% renewable waste and residue-derived feedstocks, capable of cutting carbon emissions by up to 90%. It provides a simple, readily available fuel source that can be used instead of traditional fossil fuels with minimum changes required to infrastructure and equipment.

It was estimated that by trialling the use of HVO on six refuse collection vehicles (RCV), around 170 tonnes of CO2 could be saved over a 12-month period. If its use were extended to 26 vehicles, the Council could realise potential savings of up to 725 tonnes of CO2 per year.

The key challenges for introducing HVO were:

• Ensuring sufficient information was provided to both staff and councillors on the suitability of HVO as a fuel.
• Ensuring compatibility with the Council fleet so that no warranty issues would arise if the decision was made to permanently transfer from standard diesel to HVO.

In addition, there was no additional fuel storage at the Council’s Friarton Depot in Perth, meaning a decision was needed to provide storage specifically for HVO fuel.

Action taken

Following discussions with the Council’s Waste Operations team, a briefing paper was put to councillors to make them aware of the proposals, alongside meetings with the relevant committee conveners to explain and harness support for the trial. These were met with enthusiasm in the hope that we could reduce CO2 for part of the council fleet.

A committee report looking at a fleet decarbonisation strategy was considered at the Council’s Climate Change and Sustainability Committee in February 2024, and this received an enthusiastic response from councillors. While the cost of using HVO was highlighted as being higher than that of diesel, it was decided that the key objective – reducing CO2 emissions – would be worth the investment for the savings that would be realised as a result. It was therefore agreed that a three-month trial should begin in May 2024 using six refuse collection vehicles (RCVs) based at the main operational depot at Friarton, Perth.

The source of the HVO was a critical part of the project, and Certas (the Council’s fuel provider) provided appropriate certification that the HVO was a sustainable fuel that would allow these CO2 savings to be claimed.

Signs were placed on the six vehicles used during the trial to raise public awareness of the use of HVO and reflect the aim of improving air quality.

Results

As a result of the trial where six refuse collection lorries moved over to HVO fuel, the Council noted a significant reduction in carbon emissions – namely saving 87 tonnes of carbon dioxide. The success of the trial has led to a further 18 bin lorries, again based at the Council’s Friarton Depot, being swapped to the more environmentally friendly fuel from February 2025. It is estimated that a reduction in CO2 of around 500 tonnes a year could be achieved through the changeover.

Pat Taggart explained, “The aim for us is to eventually have all our operational depots with bin lorries running on HVO, as part of our wider decarbonisation strategy. Our experience to date has been a very positive one not only in the reduction of CO2 emissions from our fleet but also in the practicalities of changing over to HVO – we have not seen any negative effects on our vehicles such as ad-hoc engine repairs, and the process of running down our diesel supply and moving to the new fuel has been straightforward and seamless.” He added:

“I’m really pleased that we can do our part to support the circular economy by using waste materials and run our fleet on a certified clean fuel.”

Darren Holloway, Commercial Director for Energy Solutions at Certas Energy, also commented, “We are thrilled to be fuelling the transition to net zero for Perth and Kinross Council, who are one of a growing number of public sector organisations switching to HVO. Demand for HVO is growing year-on-year across the UK as more organisations are understanding the sustainability benefits of switching to this fuel. We anticipate this trend to continue for the next decade, and the public sector will be a key driver for this.”

Next steps

From June 2025, it is intended that the eight waste vehicles based at outlying Council depots in Blairgowrie, Crieff, Kinross and Pitlochry will also be run on HVO fuel. A further roll-out of the fuel will then take in 14 more vehicles, taking the total of heavy fleet using HVO to a total of 40 vehicles – which should see a reduction of CO2 emissions of around 1000 tonnes a year.