UK-first ‘green’ fuel station scoops national environment award

Dec 13 2017

Cadent-backed enterprise aims to present gas as the ‘fuel of choice’ for HGVs

Lancashire site impresses with stats showing huge fall in carbon emissions
Project manager: “I hope to see many more stations like this one in the future”

A pioneering fuel station in Lancashire, which uses gas made from food waste to power hundreds of HGVs operated by big retailers, including Waitrose, has won a national environmental award.

The facility, a partnership between local gas network Cadent and CNG Fuels, impressed judges at the Utility Week Awards 2017 after it emerged that lorries which used it during its first year recorded an 84 per cent drop in carbon emissions, when compared to diesel trucks.

The station, just off junction 28 of the M6, at Leyland, dispenses gas certified as 100 per cent renewable, as CNG Fuels pays for the equivalent amount of gas to be produced through a process which recycles food waste into biomethane.

It is the first compressed natural gas (CNG) fuel station in the UK to source its gas direct from the high pressure pipe network, which means its carbon footprint is lower than others.

The station’s anchor customer is Waitrose, whose fleet of dedicated CNG lorries travel up to 500 miles on a full tank, across the Midlands and northern England.

Watch our film about this station

Richard Cook, project manager for Cadent, said: “Cadent’s ambition is for compressed natural gas to be the fuel of choice for HGVs and buses, and the creation of the Leyland filling station, dispensing 100 per cent biomethane, shows our commitment to that.

“We are proud to have supported CNG Fuels in developing this pioneering fuel station and we are absolutely thrilled to have received the Utility Week Environment Award.

“It’s fantastic that that the judges recognised the significant environmental benefit that CNG and biomethane can bring as an alternative fuel for HGVs and buses.

“The results of its first 14 months of operation speak volumes - with John Lewis Partnership having the foresight to run dedicated CNG trucks, we are seeing an 84 per cent reduction in the well-to-motion CO2 emissions of those trucks, compared with diesel counterparts.

“The UK’s gas network is ideally placed to provide the backbone for a national infrastructure of CNG filling stations. I hope to see many more stations just like Leyland in the future, helping to make significant reductions in CO2 emissions from the UK’s transport sector.

“This can have a big impact in meeting Government targets on reducing carbon emissions and having cleaner air in our towns and cities.”

Winners in the Utility Week Awards 2017 were announced at a ceremony, compered by actress Joanna Lumley, in London on Monday 11 December.

Cadent was also nominated in two other categories.

With its partner tRIIO (Morrison Utility Services & Skanska) it was shortlisted in the Capital Project Management Award category, for its work on the London medium pressure gas mains replacement scheme.

The third nomination was for Health and Safety Initiative of the Year, for a carbon monoxide awareness campaign targeted at primary school age children, which Cadent helps to co-ordinate jointly with the UK’s other gas distribution networks and the charity CO-Gas Safety.

Cadent

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