Italy's largest energy storage system based on used batteries for electric vehicles was inaugurated on Tuesday at Rome's Fiumicino airport to help it reduce carbon emissions.

The system called 'Pioneer' has been developed by Italian utility Enel and airport operator ADR and is one of the largest of its kind in Europe, the two companies said in a statement.

It will be used to store energy produced by a solar farm Enel opened in Fiumicino in January.

As Italy rolls out an increasing number of renewable energy projects, it needs storage systems to make energy available when the sun or wind are not powering its green energy plants.

Using material provided by automakers Nissan, Mercedes and Stellantis, 'Pioneer' will turn 762 battery packs and modules that can no longer be used for vehicles into a 10 megawatt-hour battery energy storage system, Enel and ADR said.

That is roughly equivalent to the electricity that would be needed to power 3,000 U.S. homes for a day.

According to Enel and ADR, the system should reduce CO2 emissions by around 16,000 tons over ten years.