The market development of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) is currently held back by a slow rate of vehicle development and adoption and a lack of and/or inadequate infrastructure provision. CNG Fuels secured Phase 1 H2020 (SME Instrument) funding to explore whether our ‘Mother’ and ‘Daughter’ CNG refuelling concept is a feasible way of supplying fuel to the UK transport sector and thus, helping to accelerate the rollout of CNG refuelling infrastructure throughout Europe. This innovation project will enable CNG Fuels to build high-pressure gas pipeline connected ‘Mother’ stations, specifically designed to supply CNG via CNG trailers to off-grid ‘Daughter’ stations which can be located within a certain radius (150km) of the ‘Mother’ station. The Phase 1 Feasibility Study sets out to determine the economic, technical and regulatory feasibility of the concept, as well as site identification and design of a pilot station and a business plan for an
EU wide rollout.
The reported technical and economic conditions indicate that the ‘Mother’ and ‘Daughter’ CNG refuelling infrastructure concept is viable. The Market Study clearly reveals that demand amongst UK fleet operators does exist (38% of companies surveyed have plans to adopt CNG or are willing to consider CNG adoption) and that there are a number of opportunities (I.e. clustered geographical demand from companies who have the necessary pre-requisites / conditions in order to host a ‘Daughter’ station) to accelerate the uptake of CNG in the UK transport market. There are a number of barriers to be overcome, however, before companies are convinced of CNG as a viable fuel for their HDV operations and survey respondents indicated that a successful pilot project would increase their confidence in CNG.
The Feasibility Study has identified two suitable sites for a pilot project and demonstrated that the task of connecting to the National Transmission System (NTS) to supply natural gas to a ‘Mother’ station is technically possible. Given these positive and encouraging findings, CNG Fuels’ ambition is to proceed to a Phase 2 study, in which a pilot NTS refuelling station will be developed from two potential ‘Mother’ station sites (Fordoun, Scotland or Barking Power Station, England) in order to test the refuelling concept in the real world.
