Car manufacturer SEAT and Spanish water management company Aqualia have joined to develop the SMART Green Gas project, which aims to use renewable biofuel from wastewater in compressed natural gas (CNG) powered vehicles.

To start the project, which will last five years, both companies have begun performing pilot tests at the Jerez wastewater treatment plant. As part of the collaboration, SEAT has provided Aqualia with two SEAT Leon TGI vehicles to conduct the necessary testing.

The project is hailed by the collaboration as a ‘step forward in the development of a circular economy and the construction of resilient cities’.

Aqualia general director Félix Parra said: ‘We are working to change the current paradigm, leaving behind the model in which treatment implies a significant energy cost.’

He added: ‘Developing the Smart Green Gas project with a medium sized wastewater treatment plant could potentially lead to the daily production of a million litres of biofuel, enough to power more than 300 vehicles. This would enable cities to fuel their network of urban buses, bin lorries, police cars or ambulances, among others.’