Both our two-stroke and our four-stroke large-bore diesel engines can easily be converted to use with renewable fuels – for example to be powered by rapeseed or palm oil. The advantage is that burning these products, apart from the refining and transport of the fuel, releases only as much CO2 back into the environment as the plants absorbed from the atmosphere while they were growing. In other words, they’re virtually CO2-neutral.

In Fritzens, near Hall in the Austrian Tyrol, MAN Diesel & Turbo has been demonstrating since 2004 how the use of fossil fuels can be reduced thanks to renewable fuels. Inventive talent, innovation, collaboration with the public sector and support from the state have all made it possible. MAN Diesel & Turbo delivered a 1,130 KW large-bore diesel generator that is powered by old cooking oil for a combined heating and power plant used at the local garbage disposal and sewage works. Cooking oil is a waste product that is generated in large quantities daily and mostly ends up unused in the waste dump. By using this source of energy, the operator is killing two birds with one stone: the old cooking oil is disposed of and used as biological fuel. Residents and restaurants and cafés in the area collect their cooking oil in resealable plastic containers of various sizes. As a result, around 1,800 tonnes of old oil and fat are collected each year. Enough to supply around 3,500 households with electricity thanks to the system from MAN Diesel & Turbo.

But that is not all: the waste heat generated by burning the oil doesn’t go unused either. It’s used to heat the building and dry the sewage sludge. This is then granulated or made into pellets and burned in a nearby cement works – again saving tons in terms of fossil fuels.