Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward announced last week that Energy Services of Pensacola (ESP), the City-owned natural gas utility, would partner with the Emerald Coast Utilities Authority (ECUA) to transition City and ECUA vehicles to compressed natural gas. The agreement provides for the construction of up to three CNG fuelling stations throughout the greater Pensacola area.

Initially, the stations will be used to fuel ECUA and City of Pensacola vehicles, but ESP will market the fuelling stations to private fleets that may be considering converting to NGVs.

“I’ve committed to finding new non-tax revenue sources for the City,” said Mayor Hayward. “Conversion to NGVs means lower fuel and maintenance costs for ECUA and City vehicles, and these fuelling stations represent a new potential revenue stream for ESP. With this agreement, we’ll begin building the infrastructure of fuelling stations that we can expand to other fleets and eventually, perhaps even residential vehicles.”

Mayor Hayward also pointed out the environmental benefits of using natural gas-powered vehicles. “Moving as many as 275 ECUA trucks from diesel to natural gas over the next ten years – plus all the NGVs the City will be converting – is going to make a huge impact on the overall air quality for the entire region,” he said, noting that he enjoys driving the natural gas-powered Honda Civic that the City of Pensacola has purchased.

ECUA plans to convert 10-15 vehicles in the first year of the agreement, with additional vehicles converted over the next eight years as part of normal vehicle replacement schedules. Moreover, the first station will be constructed at ECUA’s facility at 3050 Godwin Lane, near Pine Forest Road.

Mayor Hayward has submitted the proposed agreement to the Pensacola City Council for approval.

This article was first published

by the
NGV Journal
on Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Article source: http://www.cngnow.com/News/Post.aspx?ID=518