By Greg Johnson, Staff Reporter
This story appears in the March 19 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
General Electric Co. and Chesapeake Energy Corp. have signed a three-year agreement to accelerate the adoption of natural gas.
Beginning in the fall, GE said it will begin installing more than 250 compressed natural gas stations. These are called “CNG in a Box” because they take natural gas from a pipeline and compress it on-site at a refilling station to turn it into CNG, the companies said.
The initiative is aimed at lowering the ownership and operational costs of natural gas fueling stations, GE spokesman Sean Gannon told Transport Topics.
“The idea is for the Chesapeakes of the world to take this and roll it out in scale,” he said.
Over the next few months, the companies will make a decision where the CNG stations will be built, Kent Wilkinson, Chesapeake’s vice president for natural gas ventures, told TT.
He said that each station will cost about 30% more than a traditional 125-horsepower CNG station, which sells for between $350,000 and $400,000. CNG stations also come in the 250-horsepower variety, Wilkinson said.
Chesapeake runs a fleet of 1,400 CNG-powered vehicles and its customers operate 4,000 more, Wilkinson said. The company hopes to expand CNG use in the 22 states it operates in.
The CNG modular units will come in two configurations: an 8-foot-by-20-foot container and an 8-foot-by-40-foot container, depending on the buyer’s preferences.
The units can dispense fuel at a rate of about 7 gallon equivalents per minute, the companies said.
GE and Chesapeake said a vehicle using CNG can reduce annual fuel costs up to 40%, assuming the vehicle is driven 25,700 miles, the companies said. This is based on gasoline being priced at $3.50 per gallon and CNG at $2.09.
This represents savings totaling as much as $1,500 per fleet vehicle per year, the companies said.
Wilkinson said CNG works better with light- and medium-duty trucks because the fuel’s lower density limits driving ranges. Long haul carriers will look at LNG because of the higher fuel density allows trucks to go further on a tank of gas, Wikinson said.
The CNG technology will be developed by Chesapeake affiliate Peake Fuel Solutions.
