The Princesa de Asturias Foundation will have two electric vehicles and one natural gas vehicle for their movements during the awards week. The director of the EDP Foundation, Nicanor Fernández, has delivered the vehicles to the director of the Princesa de Asturias Foundation, Teresa Sanjurjo, in an act that took place at the Reconquista Hotel, in Oviedo.

The three vehicles are part of the current EDP fleet and will recharge and refuel in the company’s installations. It is the second year that the Princesa de Asturias Foundation has a natural gas vehicle. This technology, alongside with the electric vehicle, is one of the current bets of EDP as well as of the automotive sector. In fact, EDP is renovating its current fleet for alternative energies vehicles. The company is in process of transforming its fleet and already has more than 60 vehicles with these technologies: electric vehicle and natural gas.

Natural gas is the fossil fuel that generates the least emissions. In relation to diesel, it reduces up to 80% the nitrogen oxides emissions, while the emissions of sulphur oxides and particulate material is almost none. This environmental advantage is combined with a significant reduction in fuel costs of around 30% compared to diesel.

The use of electric vehicles also has many environmental and economic advantages. On the one hand, their use does not involve CO2 emissions or noise pollution. On the other hand, the efficiency of these vehicles is three times higher than that of combustion vehicles and, in terms of the cost of recharging, the savings are up to 80% compared to diesel.

For the recharge of electric vehicles, EDP has 10 points in public spaces, integrated in its distribution network: 5 in Gijón, 4 in Siero and 1 in Candás. The company also has 20 points in its installations. In this area of sustainable mobility, EDP develops a substitution plan of its vehicles for other more efficient ones, the implementation of “car sharing” and the expansion and modernization of the public recharge points for electric vehicles. Likewise, it has in process a plan for the development and implementation of vehicle natural gas recharge stations that will serve both the company’s fleet and the public in general.

Together, both technologies – electric and natural gas – respond to the necessities of consumers that are each day more aware of sustainable mobility and respect with the environment.

With the disposal of these three vehicles, the Princesa de Asturias Foundation maintains its firm commitment with compensating and reducing the carbon footprint that it produces during the awards week. This action adds to the collaboration with the Ecology and Development Foundation (ECODES), which has granted, for the fourth consecutive year, the CeroCO2 label to the awards.

About the EDP Foundation

The EDP Foundation has the mission to reinforce EDP Group’s commitment to society in the geographical areas where it develops its activity. Concretely, its operation areas are those related to social, cultural, environmental, educational and investigation themes, that promote a common sustainable development.