With the green light from the municipal administration, Venice’s hydrogen park is starting to take shape, where the H2 needed to supply the fuel cell buses recently ordered from the Polish manufacturer Solaris by the local public transport company AVM will be produced.
The Council of the Municipality of Venice has in fact approved, upon proposal of the Councilor for Urban Planning, the resolution of the City Council relating to the variant for the construction of the Hydrogen and Innovative Energy Park in Marghera.
“This is a project in line with this administration’s objective of guaranteeing clean air for the city” declared the Mayor of Venice Luigi Brugnaro. “After the many kilometers of cycle paths, after the parks and the many plantings, here is another piece: the change of use of an area from a productive one to an innovative energy park”.
“The resolution reclassifies the area in order to be able to establish activities related to the production and distribution of hydrogen and clean energy” explained the Urban Planning councilor Roberto D’Agostino. “The project will guarantee the refueling of the new fleet of 90 hydrogen buses which will be in circulation in the urban LPT service of the Municipality of Venice starting from 30 June 2026. AVM has started a public procedure to identify a private partner interested in the design , construction and management of a hydrogen refueling station in the municipality of Venice”.
Following the tender, the private partner – we read in the note from the municipal administration – was identified as EniLive, which made available a property area of approximately 21,000 m2, located in Via Righi, where it will be built, on the basis of a feasibility study drawn up in collaboration with AVM, the hydrogen refueling plant.
The project for this refueling station was also ranked first in the ranking drawn up following the first MIT tender for the assignment of PNRR funds in favor of water supply stations for road use, obtaining a contribution of 5.75 million of Euro.
The green hydrogen necessary to refuel AVM’s hydrogen bus fleet will be produced via a water electrolysis plant powered mainly by renewable electricity, which the company Green Hydrogen Venezia (50% AGSM AIM and 50% Eni) intends to build a short distance away in a proprietary area of approximately 22,000 m2 unused since 2017. The location of the plants for the production, storage and distribution of green hydrogen in correspondence with the Brentella navigable canal will also allow, in the future, the possibility of refueling for hydrogen-powered boats, concludes the Municipality.
