13 low carbon truck trials announced with £11m support from Government
Tue 21 August 2012
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Tesco, the John Lewis Partnership, Robert Wiseman Dairies and the BOC Group are amongst the thirteen companies leading trials in a £23m demonstration programme that aims to encourage road haulage operators in the UK to buy and use low carbon commercial vehicles. The trials are backed by £11m in Government funding and will be managed by the Technology Strategy Board in partnership with the Department for Transport and the Office for Low Emission Vehicles.
The Government funding will help operators establish and run fleets of alternative & dual-fuel heavy-goods vehicles by meeting part of the difference in capital cost between traditional vehicles and their low carbon equivalents. Over 300 low-carbon commercial vehicles will be involved in the demonstration programme.
The funding will also help meet the cost of the refuelling points for use by the trial fleets, including the provision of 11 new public access refuelling stations around the country, which will be available for use by other operators.
The freight Minister Mike Penning said: “There has been a great response to this competition from industry and the successful projects bring together a range of partners including fleet operators, vehicle convertors, gas hub providers and universities.
“These trials will reduce CO2 emissions from freight and provide important information from a range of real-life situations that will increase industry confidence in low carbon trucks in the long term.
“For example, operators often cite lack of gas refuelling infrastructure as a barrier to the take up of alternatives to diesel. These trials include £2.4 million funding for publicly accessible gas stations which will encourage investment in low carbon trucks, and other vehicles, delivering long term benefits for the environment and reduced costs for operators.”
The thirteen demonstrator trials will be led by: Ascott Transport Ltd (Derbyshire), Brit European Transport Ltd (Crewe), CNG Services Ltd (Solihull; 2 trials), G-Volution Ltd (Newport, Gwent), Howard Tenens Associates Ltd (Gloucestershire & Wiltshire), J.B. Wheaton and Sons Ltd (Somerset), John Lewis Partnership plc (London), T Baden Hardstaff Ltd (Nottingham), Robert Wiseman Dairies (Glasgow), Tesco plc (Northants), The BOC Group (Guildford) and United Biscuits UK Ltd (Leicestershire).
The demonstrator trials include:
- The John Lewis Partnership working with partners to demonstrate a 70% reduction in carbon emissions in a wide range of articulated vehicles. This will be achieved by combining recent research into truck aerodynamics with technology that substitutes the majority of the diesel used with bio-methane, and many other interventions.
- A project led by G-Volution that will trial ten 44 tonne dual-fuel commercial HGVs using their patented dual fuel technology ‘Optimiser’ and biomethane. The articulated trucks, converted to dual-fuel, will be trialled alongside diesel equivalents, providing direct comparison data for different operating environments.
- United Biscuits collaborative project, which proposes to exploit the value in used cooking oil by creating a renewable fuel solution for use in 44 tonne articulated vehicles in a way that is innovative and provides greater greenhouse gas savings than other liquid fuel.
- J.B. Wheaton and Sons Ltd will trial, with other fleet operators, the use of 28 vehicles that will be fuelled from compressed natural gas or liquid natural gas blended with renewable biomethane to run dual fuel gas converted trucks. The project will also provide seven fixed refuelling stations & five mobile stations, which can be shared with other fleet operators.
- Robert Wiseman Diaries, collaborating with Chive Fuels, Cenex and MIRA, will trial the use of 40 new warranted dual fuel 40 tonne articulated trucks substituting diesel with natural gas from two upgraded public access liquefied natural gas stations, one in the West Midlands and one in Scotland.
The demonstration trial fleets will be run for two years, during which time usage data will be gathered and analysed by the Department for Transport.
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