Over the course of two days, the Reggio Emilia’s plant of Kohler Engines sponsored and hosted the event: Alternative fuels. A sustainable path to engines decarbonization, a workshop organized by SAE-NA, STEMS-CNR and Kohler.

This workshop was an international forum dedicated to alternative fuels in the on-road and off-road industry, with discussions among the technical and scientific community from engine and component manufacturers, fuel producers, engineering companies, associations, and the world of research and academia, establishing an unbreakable bond between education and industry.

Luigi Arnone, Director of Engineering, Diesel Engines, and Vice President of SAE-NA, comments, “Alternative fuels and hydrogen represent one of the pillars on which the development of internal combustion engines is being built. There are several technologies that, like Kohler, we are studying and developing in the perspective of environmental sustainability: we do not believe that a single solution could meet all needs, rather we foresee a future in which different technologies will coexist.”

For Kohler, the choice of one solution over another will depend on the machine, as well as factors such as duty cycle, operating environment and location, regulations, and market-specific incentives, the company has said.

The Need To Broaden The Vision

What emerged from the forum is the need to broaden the business vision and move from a simple economic perspective to a broader responsibility to the environment and the community that puts sustainability at the center of business strategies. “We strongly believe that discussion within the international technical and scientific community is one of the keys to technological progress in a period of transition such as the current one,” Arnone concluded.

Among the speakers, in addition to representatives from SAE-NA and Kohler Engines, were important figures from eFuel Alliance, Eni, IVECO Group, Ricardo UK Ltd, FEV Italia, Dena, and Landi Renzo Group. Other prominent speakers came from the academic world: Empa Swiss Federal Laboratories, University of Naples Parthenope, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and University of Florence.