TruStar Energy boosts natural gas in Sacramento

TruStar Energy has won a bid to design and construct Sacramento County’s first CNG fuelling station.

The combination time fill/fast fill station will be used primarily to provide fuel for the county’s refuse fleet, however will also have a fast-fill dispenser to allow other county vehicles to fuel up.

While Sacramento has been using LNG since 2004, CNG provides economic benefits that make the switch a sensible decision, according to County of Sacramento Department of Waste Management and Recycling Superintendent, Chris Celsi.

LNG diversification

Celsi commented: "We have two yards that we operate out of – but only one LNG station which forces us to fuel a large bulk tanker that we affectionately call 'Orca', which then transports LNG to our second location, where our drivers will then line up to fuel.

"One of the big issues is we're then paying our drivers to wait up to 45 minutes for their turn to fuel their vehicle. With the CNG station, our drivers simply plug their trucks in and walk away."

The combined time fill/fast fill station will be configured to time-fill 40 vehicles simultaneously at night, when electrical power is at its cheapest. The station will also have provisions for a fast fill dispenser, which will allow other county fleet vehicles to fill as needed.

CNG fuelling

Celsi added that Sacramento currently does not have many CNG-powered fleet vehicles, however now that a CNG fuelling solution is imminent, they will be aggressively seeking new natural gas-powered vehicles.

"Any time we can work with a municipality to develop CNG fuelling infrastructure is an exciting time for TruStar Energy," said TruStar Energy Vice President of Sales, Scott Edelbach. "More and more cities and counties throughout the US are reaching out to us for a flexible solution – and we're happy to develop strategies that work for them."

The CNG station should be operational toward the end of March 2015.

Adapted from press release by Katie Woodward

Read the article online at: https://www.lngindustry.com/small-scale-lng/01102014/trustar-energy-opens-cng-station-in-sacramento-1516/