Wednesday, November 13, 2024
HydrogenLatestNews

Gasrec invests £1m in freight station to meet demand

Gasrec has completed a £1 million upgrade to its flagship refuelling facility at the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT).

The move has been taken to meet the growing demand of transport operators making the transition to liquified natural gas and compressed natural gas.

A team of engineers have installed new fuel dispensers, new supply lines and a new fuel management system, along with greater remote operability for the site in Daventry – which has the capacity to refuel up to 700 trucks per day.

Gasrec has also introduced its own fuel cards to provide better information to its customers and to prepare for expansion of its station network. Additionally, the systems align the refuelling process more closely with diesel to make driver training easier and more familiar.

Rob Wood, Chief Executive of Gasrec, said: “This investment reinforces our confidence in the growing demand for trucks running on renewable biomethane, which now represent nearly five per cent of all new tractor unit registrations in the UK.

“We have seen a huge influx of new customers at DIRFT over the course of 2020. This demand has also led us to invest in our supply chain and more than double the number of LNG road tankers in our fleet.

“These latest upgrades will ensure DIRFT continues to hit our strict targets for safety, sustainability, refuelling speed and uptime, plus it means we are best positioned to refuel the latest generations of vehicles.”

The company projects that one-third of the UK’s 44-tonne heavy truck market will have transitioned to natural gas within the next seven years, with approximately 39,000 gas-powered HGVs on UK roads.

Commenting on the projected growth, James Westcott, Chief Commercial Officer, said: “Just two and a half years ago there were no real UK-spec gas trucks available, but following launches by three of the big manufacturers we’re now seeing exponential growth. We are already supplying double the volume of gas we were back in January 2020; and that’s after volumes shot up in 2019 too. Over the next few months we’re going to be supporting hundreds of new gas trucks coming on the market, as businesses look to build back from the pandemic greener and stronger.”

Bio-CNG and Bio-LNG-powered trucks can return CO2 savings of as high as 95 per cent, plus deliver an impressive 99 per cent reduction in particulate matter and 90 per cent in NO2 emissions compared to Euro VI diesel trucks. HGVs running on renewable fuels are also around 50 per cent quieter than their diesel equivalents.

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