HTM's new buses proudly running on 'green' gas
HTM Personenvervoer NV(HTM), a public transport company serving The Hague and surrounding localities in The Netherlands, has secured gas supply through CNG Net and Essent, of some 9 million cubic metres of green gas to enable it to proceed with plans to convert its entire fleet of 135 buses to biomethane by 2011. The arrangement builds on first steps taken in 2009 when 45 diesel buses being replaced. Alderman Peter Smit (Environment) commented on behalf of the Hague Climate Fund, “This is a very important step in reducing CO2 emissions in The Hague. The entire bus fleet of HTM operates on green gas. Thus in the next two years we [can] reduce CO2 emissions by around 16,000 tonnes.”
The ‘green’ gas, chosen as the most sustainable for public transport, is produced by the fermentation of biomass (organic waste, manure) or is released in water treatment, then purified for feeding into the natural gas distribution system.
The Hague Climate Fund was established on March 17, 2009 and encourages organizations, governments and households to be climate neutral.
A related Minds In Motion article, reports that all buses in the the Hague city region, other than the Hague city services operated by HTM, will have Veolia outfits and run on natural gas by the end of next year. Besides deploying around 140 brand-new low-floor CNG buses, Veolia will also be responsible for installing new CNG filling stations before the concession period commences on 30 August next year.
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