From the University Star
by Rebecca Banks
Texas State officials will add five Compressed Natural Gas vehicles (CNG) to the university’s fleet following a requirement from a state mandate.
Facility department officials purchase new vehicles every year to replace older ones. The state requires public universities to have 80 percent of their vehicles on alternative fuel sources, said Bill Nance, vice president for finance and support services.
“We aren’t going to convert any that we presently own, but what we’re going to do is start buying vehicles that are prepped for conversion,” said Gordon Green, director of facilities management.
Green said university officials are working with a Ford dealership in New Braunfels and will not get the CNG vehicles until May.
The university will pay about $30,000 for the vehicles and the CNG conversion components. Green said the university will qualify for a $2,500 rebate from the Ford dealership.
Nance said the payback from the CNG vehicles may not happen for 2-5 years. The payback time will depend on the cost of the vehicles, the conversion fee and the difference in fuel price.
“The recent couple of months have given us a good example (that) with the drop in gasoline prices the payback is not as quick,” Nance said. “As the prices between all those three (products) narrows, it will take you longer to get back cost of outfitting, converting the vehicle to CNG.”
The CNG vehicles to be purchased are called Transit Connects and look like “box vans” equipped with natural gas conversion kits. The vehicles will be compatible with gasoline, said Juan Guerra, associate vice president of facilities.
“There are a lot of agencies looking for CNG as an alternate fuel for our vehicles,” Green said. “The problem for us was there wasn’t going to be a station in town. Well, there is a new company bringing a station to San Marcos.”
Green said the CNG location will be at the Shell station next to Pluckers. The station will be a high-pressured fueling area. Filling up a vehicle will take three minutes.
“When we buy the gas, typically what you see, like at a house, you may see 50 PSI (pounds per square inch),” Green said. “This (station) will take it up to 200 PSI natural gas. It compresses it so you can get more of the product into a tank, kind of like divers that take regular air and compress it.”
Green said purchasing CNG vehicles is “the right thing to do” from an environmental standpoint.
“Compressed natural gas is a clean-burning fuel, so it’s just natural gas,” Guerra said. “You’re pretty much using natural gas to fuel your vehicle.”
Guerra said natural gas reduces of emissions of different nitrogen oxides.
“In other words, it’s a clean-burning fuel, 93 percent reduction in carbon monoxide emissions as compared to gasoline,” Guerra said. “The air quality associated with (a) natural compressed gas fuel vehicle is much better than that for a typical gasoline fueled vehicle.”
Guerra said CNG fuel is cheaper than gasoline.
“One thing that we’re going to keep an eye on is how much it is costing us for the natural gas to fuel the vehicles and how many miles are we getting (per) gallon of natural gas as compared to gasoline,” Guerra said.
Green said university officials are unable to purchase small vehicles that use alternative fuel.
“(Transit Connect) works out well for us because one of the problems we have is there are no small vehicles available with alternative fuel except for compressed natural gas,” Green said.
Green said the university currently uses E85 and electric vehicles. The E85 vehicles are have V8 engines and a lower energy output than gasoline models.
“Our fuel economy isn’t where we want it to be, so we wanted to look at something in compressed natural gas,” Green said. “Now it’s going to be available, and it will probably be a better option for us.”
See original article.