Selecting the Best Fuel Option for Fleet Requirements

March 12, 2019
There is no cookie-cutter format for each agency's needs, so how can they determine which fuel is the best fit?

Agencies have a number of choices when it comes to fueling options for bus fleets, when considering which fuels would be the most beneficial an agency takes into account several factors including price point, infrastructure needs, sustainable emissions and performance reliability.

Saving costs with natural gas

Chad Lindholm, Clean Energy vice president, explained that natural gas is one of the cleanest fuel options available.

“Abundant, domestic and stable, natural gas helps transportation fleets operate cleaner, more efficiently and at a lower fuel cost than diesel. Clean Energy is focused on meeting the demand for renewable natural gas or RNG, a low-carbon renewable fuel that is made from organic waste and doesn’t require drilling. When paired the latest natural gas engine technology, fleets adopting RNG can realize low-carbon emissions,” said Lindholm.

He noted that agencies can see an average of 50 percent lower fuel costs using natural gas versus diesel.  

When it comes to installing infrastructure to accommodate the natural gas, Lindholm said that an onsite fueling station can be installed easily.

“While other alternative fuel technologies increase the cost of the bus itself, the OEM engines in natural gas buses are only $50,000 more than their diesel counterparts,” explained Lindholm. “If an onsite station is desired, it can easily and cost-effectively be installed in as little as six months. The entire transit bus cycle--purchase to delivery — can be completed in six to nine months.

Lindholm added that as natural gas has been proven to be a safe product for use in homes, it offers safety on the transit side, as well.

“Unlike liquid fuels, natural gas is lighter than air and doesn’t puddle. It is safe to store and dispense provided proper safety protocols are adhered to,” said Lindholm. 

Lowering emissions with CNG

Bill Cashmareck, managing director of Trillium, noted that compressed natural gas (CNG) offers agencies two benefits: fuel savings and cleaner air with lower emissions.

“A transit fleet converting to CNG today will use the new Cummins Westport .02 Gram Low NOx Engine. This engine is 90 percent cleaner than a comparable diesel engine at .2 grams NOx. If we’re talking with tailpipe emissions, this is as clean as it gets outside of battery electric and, so much so, that on most of the Cummins engine testing, they actually had a hard time getting to .02 because there are certain points in that testing where there were no emissions showing up on their scales,” said Cashmareck. “The other thing that is going on with emissions for transit vehicles is when using that .02 NOx engine, the market is moving towards renewable supply sources.”

Cashmareck said that much of the market may not know the benefits of [reducing] tailpipe and carbon emissions, the Low NOx CNG aims to [do away with] from those tailpipe emissions and toward a focus on lifecycle and carbon emissions. 

“[For] a transit [agency] that has over 200 buses that they want to convert over to CNG and they’re using renewable natural gas as their supply source; usually, this is the equivalent of 2 million gallon equivalents of CNG a year. In one year’s time, if you combine that with renewable natural gas you’re going to get up to the equivalent of 89 thousand metric tons of Co2 being taken out of the air,” said Cashmareck. “To put that into terms that are more understandable for the average citizen, that’s the equivalent of planting 4.1 million trees a year. In over a 10-year span, which every bus will go for 10 years or longer, we’re talking about planting 41 million trees in that lifespan. It is a big deal. It is the single most important thing that we can do for emissions reduction from transportation.”

Cashmareck explained CNG’s value proposition is driven through a lack of volatility and a low price point, which was $.36 per gallon at the time of this article’s writing.

“For a transit agency, if you can supply gas at this price level, you have a tremendous advantage in lowering fares and getting people to work daily in a much cheaper and a cost-effective way,” said Cashmareck.

When it comes to the change in an agency’s fueling infrastructure, Cashmareck said that much of the safety requirements are the same – with the exception of the addition of methane detection.

“Every facility is going to be different and every customer has different needs and wants. We take a consultant approach. What is common in these facility upgrades is usually you will need electricity upgrades, gas pipeline upgrades, we will need to install some equipment which will consist of gas compression, storage and mechanisms to pull the gas from the pipeline and to put into a vehicle,” said Cashmareck. “There’s going to be controls to optimize the fueling windows that the customer may have. You’ll have to do preventative maintenance schedules [which are aimed at] reducing outages to eventually eliminate outages.”

Propane increasing portability

Todd Mouw, ROUSH CleanTech's president, explained that most of the customers that they see switching to propane are doing it, not only for the emissions, but for total cost and operations savings. “Propane, for a cost-to-mile perspective, is significantly less than it is for gasoline or, in some cases, some of these paratransit agencies are still running diesel in their paratransit fleets. Propane helps them reduce their total cost of ownership to provide better service for their customers; that’s really the main drive in success that we’re seeing.”

Superior Energy Systems, LLC’s (SES), Director Jim Bunsey said a benefit of propane is also that it is Buy America compliant. He explained that 98 percent of it is made in the United States, while the other two percent is from Canada.

“It’s readily available, easily transported and its 100 percent combustion so it’s clean burning,” said Bunsey.

One of the area where propane seems to have found a niche is on-demand transit.

“I think when you go and talk to our customers in the transit industry, we’re seeing propane in the paratransit and the on-demand service that they provide to their customers, and range is important,” Mouw said that agencies need to be able to pick up their riders and get them from point A to point B as efficiently as possible. “…Propane is liquid and portable, ours has that kind of built in scalability and flexibility to it.”

Mouw said that the cost of transitioning to propane is relatively low, which Mouw said is a main draw for their clients.

“A benefit that we have being liquid and low pressure [is that] typically the cost to put in a fueling station is relatively low. [It’s] less than gasoline without the risk of environmental damage, spillage or things like that. In most cases, our customers are partnering with a propane company, who will put the infrastructure in for little to no cost in exchange for a fuel contract. That’s one option,” said Mouw. “Or the transit agency is buying their own station, depending on the size and complexity, it can be anywhere from $15 to $20,000 to $200,000 if they buy a 30,000 gallon tank. They’d shop the fuel contract year-to-year in order to get the best deal. I would say that most agencies are making the decision to partner with the propane company so that they don’t have as much out of pocket costs upfront. I would say that’s about 80 percent of [the] cases.”

 As with all fleet conversions, the price depends on the size of the fleet. Bunsey explained that a benefit of propane is that it can be easily adaptable as the agencies continue to change.

“Let’s say they have a smaller fleet like 10 vehicles when they’re starting out. We’re probably going to put 1,000 to 2,000 gallons of storage on the property. We have one dispenser without fuel management. A typical seed like that would cost about $30,000 to $35,000 and then they’ll have some infrastructure costs like electrical and crash protection and site preparation, which is anywhere between $5,000 and $10,000,” said Bunsey. “Readily, you can get a complete pumping station to fill your fleet for under $50,000. Of course, the way that our storage is and the way that our dispensers are designed, they’re always upgradeable. They could start out with 1,000 gallon storage and they go and purchase 10 more vehicles and they’re using more propane per day, they can keep adding on another 1,000 gallon tank or a 2,000 gallon tank.”

Assisting an agency in selection

Looking at it from an agency standpoint and selecting a fueling option with so many factors can be daunting. The supply side is willing to offer assistance by evaluating an agency’s needs.

Lindholm explained that there are several different areas that they focus on to determine the benefits. “First, we look at the proven reliability and performance of an OEM-certified product to ensure daily rollout and optimal fleet uptime. We also take economics into consideration. Natural gas is proven to be easily adopted and deliver significant fuel cost savings to transit agencies across North America. There are environmental factors; with more municipalities cracking down on emissions, natural gas fleet vehicles offer significant environmental attributes that are critical to reducing pollution because they are 90 percent cleaner than diesel and can reduce greenhouse gas upwards of 100 percent.”

Mouw explained that ROUSH CleanTech has been around for more than 40 years, with experience working within different fueling options including developments in hydrogen, natural gas and propane.

“We understand the difference in the fuel types and what the application the agency is trying to run and what the needs are. I think that longer term, there is a lot of interest in electricity. When it comes to paratransit, we think that propane is the right choice. When you’re talking about a significant amount of range required, we think that propane is the right fit and makes the most sense,” said Mouw. “You can pack a lot of fuel on board and give them comparable range to gas or diesel with lower emissions and lower cost. We see that as the fuel for the next decade or so until the cost of batteries come down..”

Trilluim’s Cashmareck stressed the approach of being a consultant.

 “We ask a lot of questions because we want to understand their scenario. We listen to their operations needs and any bells and whistles that they want designed into the system. Every transit property is different, traffic flows can be different and every solution, therefore, is customized from our end. What we’re looking to do is maximize the output to the customer based on the budget that they have to work with or would like to spend and really make sure that they have a seamless operation when all is said and done,” Cashmareck said.

Bunsey said that SES is also keeping an ear to the ground when it comes to fuel to see what alternative fuels are emerging and what the responses have been. Bunsey also added that as the fuel industry continues to evolve, agencies have more resources.

“There are lots benefits and with so many success stories. Fleet managers can now go talk to schools and talk to other fleets and they’re understanding that this is a viable option,” said Bunsey.