European GasHighWay Project Proves to Be Highly Successful

After three years of productive work the European project GasHighWay came to an end last year.

Supported by the European Commission under the Intelligent Energy – Europe Programme, the project aimed at promoting the uptake of gaseous vehicle fuels, namely biomethane & CNG, and placed special emphasis on the realisation of a comprehensive network of refuelling stations for these fuels, spanning Europe from the north, Finland and Sweden, to the south, Italy – in other words: the GasHighWay.

Stimulating the spread of best practices and best available technologies in the uptake of gaseous fuels in vehicles and the production & upgrading of biogas to vehicle fuel as well as its delivery to customers in Europe were also declared goals of the initiative. Several publications have been published during the project duration in order to achieve these aims.

NGVA Europe was deeply involved and contributed actively, while fostering good relations and interaction with political decision makers and disseminating the results of the project at European level. In addition, the Natural and bio Gas Vehicle Association also successfully organised the project’s first international seminar in Malmö (Sweden) and its final seminar, which was held in Brussels (Belgium) last March.

The GasHighWay partners and various NGVA Europe Members published the project‘s achievements and highlighted the main conclusions and policy recommendations.

Selected achievements:

• In total 23 gas refuelling stations have been promoted with direct technical support and feasibility studies. Many of these cases are in investment stage, and if all the cases will be realised, this would mean an investment of at least 7 million Euros.
• More than 40 company fleet operators have been supported to uptake gas vehicles. This includes more than 300 buses, waste disposal collectors, trucks and light duty vehicles.
• More than 20 cases for biogas production and upgrading have been actively supported through the project. If realised, these would contribute to investments of more than 80 million Euros.
• The GasHighWay project has produced several valuable tools, publications, and user friendly map solutions to show to company fleet operators and private persons that gas vehicles are a reasonable, cheap and environment friendly alternative. These include: best practices reports, feasibility studies and business plans for the realisation of filling stations and the uptake of biogas production & upgrading technology, national reports on current status of biogas production, an EcoFleet Scan tool to activate gas vehicle fuel consumption, as well as a CNG/biomethane network map as GPS application (available on the project website, to be also placed on the NGVA Europe website soon).
• Several appeals and declarations for politicians were prepared, political decision makers were contacted and activated on European and national levels to affect to inadequate policies, standards, and laws.
• The regional / national events have been organised in order to raise awareness on the use of gaseous vehicle fuels. In total 59 events have been organised, attended by nearly 4300 participants.

Main lessons learnt:

• The role of legislation and regulations is essential when promoting the uptake of gaseous fuels and gas vehicles.
• Continuous communication to key decision makers and local authorities is needed to overcome the market barriers in the development of the gas refuelling and biogas production and upgrading infrastructure.
• The public opinion of gas vehicles as well as the majority of the facts regarding gaseous fuels is very positive.
• The interest for gas vehicles is closely connected to the price for diesel and gasoline. As long as the prices for conventional fuels increase, the higher is the interest of people for alternative fuels.
• In order to start a project for biogas upgrading and utilisation as vehicle fuel, it is best to form a partnership along the whole value-chain. This means close co-operation with the biogas producer, the operator of the upgrading plant and the refuelling station, and finally with the local car dealers, that promote NGVs.

[mappress]
LNG World News Staff, January 16, 2013; Image: Gas Highway