14 DAY TRIAL // UMP has recently announced that, as shown by fleet tests carried out since last year's May until early 2014, its BioVerno renewable diesel performs just as well as petroleum diesel when used to power cars.
According to Green Car Congress, UPM's BioVerno renewable diesel is wood-based. This means that it is made from wood biomass.
In order to test its performances, UPM pieced together a fuel blend that included 20% BioVerno and 80% fossil diesel, the same source details.
This blend was then used to power cars during an overall 80,000-kilometer (approximately 50,000 miles) test involving four new Volkswagen Golf 1.6 TDI cars behind whose wheels were experienced drivers.
The test was carried out by the VTT Technical Research Center of Finland, and the renewable diesel was found to perform well both in terms of fuel functionality in engine and in terms of fuel consumption.
“We studied UPM BioVerno diesel in various conditions: summer and winter weathers as well as on city roads and longer drives,” said specialist Juhani Laurikko.
“The length of the drives varied from a few kilometers to several hundreds of kilometers on the road, just like real life situations. The engines of the test cars were working excellently in all conditions during the full length of the fleet testing,” he added.
The company is now making plans to continue testing the wood-based diesel. The new round of tests is expected to begin in the Helsinki metropolitan area later this year, and will involve not cars, but buses.