Decarbonization strategies for the automotive industry: the case study of an IVECO Group plant

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. To meet the goals set out in the Paris Agreement, governments, businesses and investors must work together to achieve significant and immediate reductions in emissions. In particular, businesses must seek innovative and efficient solutions to minimize the impact of their production activities on the environment. IVECO Group, like many multinational companies, has decided to take up this challenge and set ambitious targets. Among these targets, the most challenging one is undoubtedly "net zero carbon" by 2040. To reach this goal, the implementation of a decarbonization plan in all facilities is crucial, starting with those having the highest energy consumption and CO2 emissions. In this thesis, a decarbonization plan has been developed for one of these plants, which will serve as a model for the others. In the first phase, processes and consumption for different macro-areas were described and analyzed, identifying the most relevant energy vectors for each area. This allowed the highlighting of certain critical issues for which energy efficiency and decarbonization projects were presented, accompanied by a detailed technical and economic analysis. Subsequently, an analysis was conducted to assess the contribution to the decarbonization process resulting from the transition to electricity production based on renewable energy systems. Particular emphasis was placed on the evolution of the emission factor of electricity purchased from the grid in response to changes in the Italian energy mix. Two scenarios proposed by the International Energy Agency (IEA) were analyzed: the Announced Pledges Scenario (APS), which is based on all climate commitments made by governments, and the Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS), which reflects the policies that governments are actually implementing to achieve their established goals. Considering the contributions resulting from the proposed projects and the ongoing transition toward a more environmentally sustainable Italian power generation system, a decarbonization plan was developed for the selected plant until 2040. Finally, by comparing the results obtained with the given targets, it emerged that the identified projects alone will not be sufficient to allow the plant to reach net zero carbon by 2040. Therefore, some solutions have been proposed that could potentially close this gap in the future and achieve the set objectives.