The compressed natural gas fueling site for the food and beverage company will be set up at its Oak Farms Dairy plant in Houston, Texas. The station, which will be used to fuel the CNG vehicles deployed by Dean Foods, is scheduled to be completed by the second half of the year. The facility will be engineered with the ability to expand to accommodate fueling a fleet of 120 CNG commercial vehicles.
Over the next several months, the company will introduce 57 CNG Freightliner M2-112 straight trucks and 7 Freightliner Cascadia over-the-road tractors powered by the Cummins ISL-G and ISX12-G engines, respectively and outfitted with Agility CNG fuel tanks.
As part of its overall greenhouse gas reduction goal, Dean Foods set a goal in 2008 to reduce its distribution fleet’s CO2 emissions by 50,000 metric tons by 2013 – a goal surpassed by the end of 2010. The objective was revised in 2012 to reduce distribution emissions 95,000 metric tons by 2020.
A grant covering a portion of the vehicle costs has been provided to Dean Foods under the Texas Natural Gas Vehicle Grant Program (TNGVGP), funded by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TECQ). Through this voluntary grant program, monies are provided to reduce nitrogen oxide emission by replacing older diesel engines with cleaner-burning natural gas engines.
Source: Clean Energy Fuels Corp.