Sheffield City Council vehicles ready for biomethane trial
Sheffield City Council is to conduct a demonstration running light vans and other council vehicles on biomethane. The council has signed an agreement to install a temporary filling station, said to be one of the first of its kind in the UK, to demonstrate the environmental benefits of biomethane powered vehicles. The biomethane gas filling station and associated delivery equipment will be supplied by Chesterfield BioGas, a division of Chesterfield Special Cylinders Ltd, also based in Sheffield. Biomethane is generated from organic waste products such as cattle manures, or horticultural and brewing residues and, most significantly for the future, household waste.
The agreement for the Sheffield demonstration project allows for the biomethane to be supplied to the site by road in a transportable cylinder pack built by Chesterfield Special Cylinders. The amount of fuel used by the Council’s vehicles will be carefully monitored to assess the level of emissions and to compare the performance of the scheme against other successful schemes around the world.
The city will use this initial six month project to find out how practical it is to operate low carbon, low emission biomethane fuelled vehicles within the Sheffield City Council fleet as an alternative to petrol and diesel. Over the trial period, Sheffield City Council will assess the environmental benefits in terms of reduced carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulate matter (PM10) against existing vehicles running on diesel. Following the trial a project evaluation will take place to assess the environmental benefits, performance, reliability and cost saving achieved as a result of operating these vehicles.
Chesterfield says that in the longer term, the Council may support the development of plants to digest organic wastes and then capture the raw biogas produced. This could be cleaned and upgraded to biomethane by the Chesterfield BioGas process, before being compressed and dispensed at a similar but permanent vehicle filling station.
Steve Simmons of the Sheffield Council Environmental Strategy Team said of the scheme: “We have been working closely with Chesterfield BioGas who have a proven technology which we are very keen to use as part of this demonstration project. The use of gas-powered vehicles will assist Sheffield to hit the Government’s targets for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.”
Sarah Rani, Project Manager at Sheffield City Council, said: “The project provides Sheffield with a real opportunity to reducing its carbon emissions from transport and help tackle climate change through the use of biomethane as a renewable vehicle fuel.”
“A temporary biomethane refuelling station has been installed at Sheffield’s Staniforth Rd transport depot, and we have replaced some of the councils existing vehicle fleet with gas vehicles. Availability of these vehicles and necessary refuelling infrastructure in the UK is poor and so the take up is low. By using biomethane as a vehicle fuel in our own fleet we aim to demonstrate that this is a sound commercial option for most vehicle operators in the city and encourage them to do the same”, added Rani.
The project is being run in partnership with Chesterfield Biogas, Volkswagen and Mercedes, and is jointly funded by the Area Based Grant and the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Grant Programme.
The council has enabled vehicle performance to be tracked on its website.
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