Growth of Natural Gas Use in Vehicles Expected

Due to "a prolonged period of stable diesel fuel prices and new competition emerging from electric vehicles", some of the excitement about natural gas as a transportation fuel has subsided in recent years. But there are some developments that could bring back that excitement. One is the new Cummins Westport ISX 12N engine which will provide natural gas users with unprecedented performance and efficiency. That, plus extended engine oil intervals and a growing fueling infrastructure will bring renewed interest in natural gas.

The 2017 income tax measure approved retroactive tax credits for vehicles and refueling infrastructure.

The refuse industry has been adding natural gas vehicles in "significant volume." Sales of natural gas vehicles are expected to increase 10% annually. "Clean Energy Fuels reported demand for its Redeem RNG product grew 32% during 2017."

"UPS announced an agreement with Big Ox Energy to purchase 10 million gallon equivalents of RNG a year. During 2017, the Atlanta-based parcel giant announced a planned investment of more than $90 million for six additional CNG stations, 390 new CNG tractors and terminal trucks, and 250 LNG vehicles."

Clean Energy won a four-year fueling contract from Ryder for a fleet of LNG heavy duty trucks used by Toyota Motor Corporation in Kentucky. They expect to supply 380,000 GGE of LNG annually to Toyota.

Last year, Nestlé Waters North America added 155 Ford F-650 delivery trucks that run on propane autogas, bringing its total to 600, or 30% of its total North American fleet.

Improved User Interface for Alternative Fueling Station Locator

Clean Cities has announced an upgrade to their Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) Station Locator. You can find the upgraded Station Locator here.

Some of the notable new features include a sleek look and feel, simplifying the user experience, as well as a bigger map populated with consistent circle icons for each station location and updated colors representing each fuel type. Users will also notice a larger and more detailed view of specific station information.

On the Station Locator home page, there are now two tabs at the top of the map: Find Public Stations and Analyze and Download Data.

The Find Public Stations tab allows users to search for public stations at a specific location, with the option to search for all fuels or just one.

The Analyze and Download Data tab allows users to refine their search using filters, broken out into three categories: Location, Fuel, and Station.

VOC Recovery System Will Save 3,000 Tons Of Fuel Annually On Shuttle Tanker

Wärtsilä announced it will supply its Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) recovery technology, LNG fuel gas handling systems and the auxiliary engines for two new shuttle tankers being built for Singapore based AET Tankers at the Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard in South Korea. VOC – the gas evaporating from the oil cargo tanks – will be recovered and mixed with the tanker's LNG fuel. This will save more than 3,000 tons of LNG per year per vessel, plus enabling significant reductions in CO₂.

Hog Farm Emissions in North Carolina Captured For RNG

Duke Energy, in North Carolina, is using renewable natural gas from hog farm methane to generate electricity. A North Carolina law requires Duke Energy to produce 0.2% of its retail sales from swine waste by 2023.

"CSA Group Publishes New NGV Standard for Fuel Storage and Delivery"

From NGVAmerica News:

CSA Group has published the second edition of CSA/ANSI NGV 6.1, Compressed Natural Gas fuel storage and delivery systems for road vehicles. A CNG fuel system standard was included as a priority on the 2016 US Department of Energy and Natural Resources Canada’s Natural Gas Vehicle Work Plan, in support of the Regulatory Cooperation Council. To meet this need, CSA Group worked with the North American natural gas vehicle industry to transition the bi-national recommended practice, CSA/ANSI NGV 6.1 – Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Fuel Storage and Delivery Systems for Road Vehicles, to a bi-national standard recognized in the US and Canada by ANSI and SCC, respectively.

“NGV 6.1 fills a gap that the NGV industry has been missing for years,” said Dan Bowerson, Director of Technology & Development, NGVAmerica and Co-chair of NGV 6.1. “By using system engineering practices and starting with a system level FMEA, the NGV 6.1 Technical Subcommittee was able to focus on safety needs of the CNG fuel storage and handling systems. The Technical Subcommittee developed a standard that will be useful for companies or individuals involved in the design and installation of CNG systems and components.”

The first edition of CSA NGV 6.1 was a Recommended Practice that provided a recommended standard practice for vehicle fuel systems. It was written in mandatory language to accommodate its adoption by anyone wishing to do so. The second edition transitioned to a National Standard.

400 Or More Diesel Trucks To Be Replaced With Natural Gas Trucks

The South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) in southern California has received 400 applications for a share of $21 million to replace 400 or more heavy duty diesel trucks with heavy duty natural gas trucks. That would be the equivalent of taking more than 22,000 passenger vehicles off the road. Fleet owners seeking to replace diesel trucks may be eligible for up to $100,000 towards the purchase of a new natural gas truck.

The money comes from California's Prop 1B, approved in 2006, which, among other things, is intended to reduce emissions of diesel particulates from vehicles that use the state's ports.

SoCalGas provided assistance to SCQAMD with the applications. More info can be found in this article at NGVAmerica.

"If we want cleaner air, we need cleaner trucks"

An editorial by Daniel Gage, president of NGVAmerica, that originally appeared in The Hill:

A lot of discussion is ongoing this week about the Trump administration's move on light-duty vehicle standards. But there's so much more to consider.

Heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) — not passenger cars — are the fastest growing segment of U.S. transportation in terms of energy use and emissions. And today's just-in-time delivery expectation and expanding goods movement industry ensure the number of trucks on our roads won't be reduced anytime soon.

While HDVs total 7 percent of all vehicles on America's roadways, they account for upwards of 50 percent of all smog-precursor emissions and 20 percent of all transportation-related greenhouse gases (GHGs). And 74 percent of all HDVs on the road today are not certified to the latest nitrogen oxide (NOx) emission standard.

Over 125 million Americans reside in areas of exceedingly poor air quality; 40 percent of our population is regularly exposed to unhealthy levels of ozone and particulate matter. Most of those impacted neighborhoods are in urban and suburban communities with heavy truck traffic.

The bottom line? If we want cleaner air, we need cleaner trucks.

There is an immediate and commercially-available solution to this problem for fleets of all sizes and applications — expanded use of natural gas in transportation.

In fact, replacing one traditional diesel-burning heavy-duty truck with one, new Ultra Low-NOx natural gas heavy-duty truck is the emissions equivalent to replacing 119 traditional combustion engine cars with 119 battery electric vehicles.

The cleanest truck engines in the world are powered by natural gas. The Ultra-Low NOx natural gas engine — made in America — is 90 percent cleaner than the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) current NOx standard. It is certified by both the EPA and the California Air Resources Board to a 0.02 gram per brake horsepower hour (g/bhp-hr) standard, making it zero-emission equivalent (ZEE).

When renewable natural gas is used to fuel it, even greater CO2 and GHG emissions reductions are achieved, helping to clean our cities and improve the environment. With renewable natural gas, the product becomes carbon neutral or even negative.

Natural gas vehicles (NGVs) have long been the choice of fleet managers interested in escaping the volatility of ever-changing gasoline and diesel prices. Natural gas currently powers passenger vehicles, medium-duty work vehicles, short- and long-haul trucks, school buses, transit buses and shuttles, refuse trucks, construction and mining equipment, marine vessels, and locomotives.

Natural gas technology is commercially-proven and readily-available in the United States right now, not in a projected five or even ten years as is the case with other heavy-duty alternative fuel technologies. Compared to expensive electric or fuel cell technologies still in development, investing in natural gas vehicles is the most cost-efficient solution delivering more new vehicles and far more emission reductions than any other available alternative right here, right now, today.

It's important that we have light-duty transportation options with the cleanest profile available. But if federal and state policymakers are really concerned about cleaning our air now, we as a Nation need to focus on transitioning existing heavy-duty fleets to clean natural gas-powered technology.

CALSTART NewsNotes 3-29-18

Greetings:

Up next—the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) isn't convinced that automakers can meet fuel efficiency standards that were established under the Obama administration. Auto manufacturers are expressing concern over a potential weakening of the targets and Ford has said that they are not asking for a rollback. CALSTART has just announced the latest findings from auto suppliers and 84% of the largely Tier 1 suppliers back the 2025 standards as being effective in spurring job growth. This reflects a 25% increase over a similar survey conducted by CALSTART in 2016 in support of strong fuel-economy standards.

And now a shout out to Clay Siegert, COO at XL for his excellent summary of the effectiveness of voucher programs for fleets, particularly showcasing the California Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Program (HVIP). Anyone interested in exploring the program, which is administered by CALSTART, can get more information here.

The Harvard Business Review is showcasing UPS and what's behind their electric vehicle adoption strategy. In addition to up-front cost barriers being broken down, the industry is seeing greater efficiency as well as brand benefits associated with innovation. Scott Phillippi (UPS Senior Director of Maintenance and Engineering) also talked about the UPS partnership with Workhorse which yesterday held a media event to announce the deployment of four all-electric N-Gen delivery vans in the San Francisco Bay area. UPS previously announced that they will lease 50 Class 5 electric vans from Workhorse.

Motiv Power Systems has received the first zero-emission chassis certification from the California Air Resources Board (CARB). The company showed its battery electric EPIC chassis earlier this month at the Work Truck Show in Indianapolis. Eberspaecher Controls is out with news about their plug-in power mini relay component which can control and switch electric loads for various applications including passenger cars, commercial vehicles, off roaders or industrial applications.

Efficient Drivetrains has been contracted to participate in a Department of Energy program to provide an electric drivetrain for school buses as a replacement for diesel engines. The award is $4.4 million and with other project funding partnerships the total project is about $9 million. EDI has collaborated with several OEMs on bus electrification projects.

SoCalGas is on a mission to get more natural gas (NG) trucks on the roads in Southern California and toward that end they have announced new efforts that are part of a South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) Prop 1B incentive pool. 400 diesel trucks will be replaced with NG trucks if all of the submitted applications are funded. Participating fleets can receive up to $100,000 toward the purchase of a new NG truck.

Move LA and CALSTART are partnering to explore a new initiative for 2020 that could yield substantial funding to clean up the freight sector and convert truck and bus fleets to zero/near-zero technologies in LA County. You are invited to "Vision 2020 Can California Conquer Both Clean Air & Climate Change" which is scheduled for Thursday, April 19, 2018 from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. (lunch is included) at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator. Join CALSTART, Move LA, Mary Nichols, Chair, California Air Resources Board, and retired Senator Fran Pavley along with other targeted influencers to launch the discussion. You can sign up here.

Until Next Week,
Kimberly

Trump Officials Prepare to Undo CAFÉ Targets Despite Misgivings, Washington Post

Survey Says Auto Suppliers Back Tougher Fuel-Economy Standards, Wards Auto

Vouchers are Becoming the Clean Vehicle Incentive of Choice for Fleets, Green Car Congress

HVIP Voucher Program

Inside UPS's EV Strategy, Harvard Business Review

Electric N-Gen Vans From Workhorse Begin Delivering Goods, Trucks.com

Motiv Scores First California Cert for MD EV Chassis, Trucks.com

Solid State Power Mini Relay Targets Automotive Applications, EENews

EDI Selected by DOE to Provide Drivetrains for Electric School Buses, ChargedEVs

Hundreds of SoCal Fleets Make Moves Toward NG, NGT News

Move LA and CALSTART Invitation

Kimberly Taylor
Director Member Services, CALSTART
HQ: 48 S. Chester Ave. Pasadena, CA 91106

Offices in New York, Denver, Fresno, SF Bay Area
626-622-6229 – ktaylor@calstart.org