New calls for government action on gas-powered HGVs

The UK needs to invest in a refuelling infrastructure if methane gas is to meet its potential as a fuel for road-going heavy trucks, concludes a report from the Department for Transport’s Low Emission HGV Task Force.

The Task Force’s membership includes the Freight Transport Association, the Road Haulage Association, the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership and the Transport Knowledge Transfer Network. It is supported by the Department for Transport, the Office of Low Emission Vehicles and DEFRA.

The report states that so far there are only a few hundred gas-powered trucks registered in the UK out of a total parc of some 460,000 vehicles over 3.5 tonnes gross weight.

Most of the gas vehicles are so-called ‘dual-fuel’ conversions, using either liquefied or compressed methane as a primary fuel, with diesel serving as a start-up fuel and the ignition medium.

Most gas heavy trucks (over 26 tonnes gvw) use this technology. There is also a smaller number of lighter trucks using dedicated gas engines with lower compression ratios and spark ignition, although the fleet with the highest profile, the Iveco rigids operated by Coca-Cola in London during the Olympics, have since been withdrawn from service after their work was outsourced to a haulier.

The report identifies two main barriers to the uptake of gas trucks: concerns about their cost and reliability and the lack of an accessible nationwide refuelling infrastructure.

There is a front-end price premium of £15,000 to £44,000 on a gas truck (LNG vehicles, with their insulated tanks, are more expensive than CNG trucks), a 10 per cent premium on maintenance costs, and residual values are low.

A lack of accessible public refuelling stations currently confines their use to back-to-base operations, such as local distribution, although the majority of carbon emissions from the UK’s truck parc come from long-haul, maximum-weight vehicles.

The report calls for support for a nationwide network of refuelling stations, similar to the Gasrec facility at DIRFT that can handle 250 trucks per day. Such stations would need to provide both compressed (CNG) and liquefied (LNG) gas.

Gas tanks also add to the unladen weight of the vehicle, and the European Commission has proposed allowing a one-tonne increase in gross weights for gas trucks to compensate for the lost payload.

The reports points to the environmental advantage of using zero-carbon biomethane gas (from sources such as landfill sites and purpose-built digesters) to displace ‘fossil’ diesel as a road fuel.

Current financial incentives for the electricity industry are encouraging power generators to use biomethane in place of ‘fossil’ natural gas but there are no such incentives for operators of gas vehicles.

Savings in ‘tank-to-wheel’ CO2 emissions for methane are of up to 14 per cent compared to diesel, but the advantage that this provides in the climate change stakes can be obliterated by methane slip of unburned gas: methane is 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2.

Replacing diesel with methane has the potential to give an improvement in urban air quality, with much lower emissions of NOx and particulates being predicted. However, there are no Euro 6 dual-fuel engines currently available.

Replacing diesel with methane has the potential to save operators between £7,000 and £51,000 for the first life of the vehicle, with the greater savings achieved by the heaviest trucks.

The report concludes: “There is potential for a breakthrough in the take-up of methane gas HGVs, but there are many challenges which need to be addressed to create the conditions for road freight operators to invest in new technologies and infrastructure. In addition, work needs to be done to understand the long term environmental case for moving to methane gas.”

The Freight Transport Association (FTA) has said it is supporting the Task Force’s recommendations, claiming that the use of LNG and CNG would ensure the freight sector could contribute to national carbon reduction targets, whilst still delivering essential goods and services.

Air quality in urban areas would also improve, the association said.

In last year’s Autumn Statement, the government said it would maintain the fuel duty differential between the main rate and that for road fuel gases until 2024. But FTA said more needed to be done.

Rachael Dillon, climate change policy manager for FTA, said: “The recent commitment by government on the duty differential for gas provides much needed confidence for the freight industry to invest in dual fuel and dedicated gas vehicles.

“However, there is a lack of public refuelling infrastructure for gas vehicles which limits progress. Additionally, biomethane supplies need to be secured for the transport sector.

“The Task Force rec-ommendations show that Government, key stakeholders and industry can work together to significantly increase the take up of gas HGVs. It is vital that we now build momentum and ensure that the recommendations transfer into actions.”

Meanwhile, liquefied gas fuel supplier Gasrec has welcomed a report by the House of Lords science and technology committee entitled Waste or Resource? Stimulating a Bioeconomy.

The report claims that around 100 million tonnes of carbon-containing waste could be exploited each year as a resource, and recommends that a minister in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) should take responsibility for the development of a ‘waste-based, high-value bioeconomy’.

Gasrec operates its own biomethane liquefaction plant that runs on sustainable landfill methane. Its product is known as bio-LNG, which combines biomethane with liquefied natural gas. It is said to fuel more than 60 per cent of the gas-powered HGVs on the UK’s roads, including the fleets of high-profile brands such as B&Q (pictured), DHL, Kuehne & Nagel, Sainsbury’s, the Stobart Group, Tesco and Waitrose.

Commenting on the House of Lords report and its recommendations, Rob Wood, Gasrec’s chief executive officer, said: “We firmly support the proposal for a government minister to champion a waste-based, high value bioeconomy. A coordinated focus in this area is long overdue and would bring considerable benefit.

“However, to obtain maximum value for the energy a bioeconomy would generate it will be critical for the minister to address the subsidy regimes currently in place. For example, reducing emissions from heavy goods vehicles by using biomethane as a transport fuel would contribute significantly to meeting carbon reduction commitments and greatly improve air quality.

“But the attractiveness of using this fuel in transport is widely undermined by current subsidy regimes. At present these encourage the three sources of biomethane – landfill, sewage and anaerobic digestion – to be used for power or heat rather than as a transport fuel.

“This is despite power and heat applications only displacing lower emission natural gas, whereas as a transport fuel, biomethane displaces the far higher emissions related to the use of diesel.

“Addressing such issues will be a key early challenge for the success of any waste-based, high value bioeconomy.”