A new high-pressure compressed natural gas (CNG) filling station is now open for business off junction 28 on the M6 near Leyland, Lancashire.
Run by CNG Fuels, in partnership with National Grid, the facility is capable of ‘fast filling’ 500-plus HGVs per day, or as much as 3,500kg of CNG per hour.
It also supplies renewable biomethane (Bio-CNG).
The official opening saw the first major customer, Waitrose, part of the John Lewis Partnership (JLP), fill up at the new facility (see below).
Waitrose has an RDC less than one mile from the new CNG filling station and will be its anchor customer.
Justin Laney, central transport general manager at JLP, said: "Our strategy is to displace diesel with bio-methane where practical, and we run one of the largest alternatively fuelled heavy truck fleets in the UK to enable us to do that."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-_KWoLrCCM
Philip Fjeld, director at CNG Fuels, said that while the cost of diesel had fallen, the wholesale price of natural gas had also dropped and customers could expect a pump price of CNG at Leyland more than 30% cheaper than the equivalent price of one litre of diesel.
He added that using CNG also cuts CO2 emissions by more than 20%.
Fjeld told Freightinthecity that several local authorities had already expressed an interest in using the facility for their own fleets.
The CNG filling station is the first in the UK to be connected to the National Grid.
