NGV sector is growing rapidly worldwide

While awareness regarding the actual environmental issues that our planet faces is spreading more and more, it is encouraging to note that cleaner sources of energy are making their place in different markets. Natural gas for vehicles (NGV) is one of these sources of energy since particle emissions resulting from its combustion are far lower than those of regular fuels such as gasoline or diesel. NGV sector is growing rapidly worldwide and everything suggests it will not slow down.

How is NGV used and what are its main benefits?

To use NGV as a fuel for transportation, it must either be compressed or liquefied since its energy density is less than regular fuels. Compressed natural gas (CNG) is used for short-distance trucks and lighter vehicles, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) is used for long-haul trucks. In terms of power, acceleration and cruising speed, it is important to know that NGV is very similar to gasoline and diesel, which justifies and supports the industry potential of this cleaner energy, especially since NGV is cheaper than regular fuels. Also, NGV engines run quieter than regular fuel engines, which makes them especially easy to be adopted by truck drivers and to be accepted by citizens in urban areas.

In Europe, NGV is strengthening current markets and entering new ones

Spain will soon have its first operational CNG station in a couple of months. The facility will be located near the city of Madrid in the municipality of San Sebastián de los Reyes. Galp Energia, the company in charge of the project, is based in Lisbon, Portugal, and claims this first CNG station is the beginning of its plans to implement CNG over its network of regular fuel stations comprising already over 620 stations over Spain.

France already has many CNG stations over its territory, and the company Air Liquide pursues the development of this cleaner transportation fuel network by having implemented the first multi-energy station of the country. Located east of Paris at approximately 350 km, in the municipality of Fléville-devant-Nancy, the station offers CNG, LNG, and N2 (liquid nitrogen). CNG and LNG are used for regular urban delivery trucks, considering the lower noise level of NGV engines, and N2 is used for trucks transporting refrigerated food in cryogenic units.

Meanwhile in USA

The United States represent a really promising potential market for NGV. Indeed, the country could benefit greatly from becoming more independent of regular fuels considering almost a third of their supply must be imported. Since the U.S. have plenty of domestic natural gas, an obvious strategy would be to increase its exploitation in order to deploy a greater domestic NGV industry, especially since 70% of the national U.S. consumption of petroleum is for transportation.

Accordingly, many states such as New York and Kentucky are being granted their first CNG stations, and one particular state has just reached a tremendous milestone worth mentioning. Indeed, the state of Oklahoma has just attained the highest proportion of CNG stations per capita of all the U.S. by completing its objective of having a network of CNG stations as dense as one station every 100 miles (161 km) on all Oklahoma interstates. Many companies have been involved in the establishment of this impressive network, per se OnCue Express, Love’s Travel Stops, Tulsa Gas Technologies, Oklahoma Natural Gas and Sparq Natural gas.

On the road towards RNG

Even though NGV is a cleaner energy in comparison to regular fuels, it remains that the environmental benefits are greatly increased when using renewable natural gas (RNG) instead of conventional natural gas. In fact, RNG is carbon-neutral because it is obtained by upgrading biogas coming either from landfill gas or from anaerobic digestion of organic matter such as organic residual waste, livestock manure or wastewater sludge. In the end, even though RNG is not yet the main source of natural gas for transportation, it is more than promising for the RNG industry future that the infrastructure for NGV is getting massively implemented in many countries.

Sources: Alternative Fuels Data Center – U.S. Department of Energy (1, 2), NGV Global (1, 2)