EU action on Natural gas and Biomethane

Blue Corridor "Hansa". 10th October, Hamburg

Transport

Blue Corridor "Hansa".

The Clean Power for Transport package establishes that natural gas is part of the EU mix of alternative fuels required to substitute oil as energy supply to transport in the long term. Natural Gas offers a large potential to contribute to the diversification of transport fuels. Natural gas reserves had formerly been estimated to last around 30-40 years longer than those of oil. New drilling techniques have considerably increased the available resources, by up to a factor of 3 in recent years. These reserves can also be significantly increased by the EU production of biomethane Natural gas offers important environmental benefits in terms of reduction of CO2 and pollutant emissions. Moreover, the injection of bio-methane into the natural gas grid can significantly contribute towards a decrease in the CO2 intensity of natural gas and diversify sources.

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CNG vehicles
CNG vehicles are based on a mature technology, using conventional internal combustion engines. A reasonable choice of vehicles has been developed in recent years. However, the market is not sufficiently developed Only 1 million vehicles run in the EU ( 0.5% of the EU market) . In addition, there is an un-even distribution across Member States: Italy (846,000), Germany (96,000), Bulgaria (60,000), Sweden (44,000) A major obstacle to a broader market introduction is the lack of refuelling infrastructure in a large part of Europe and common standards. Only 2,900 refuelling points in EU ) Different national standards are in force ( Austria: VGW G97, Germany: DVGW G651,Sweden: TSA 2010, Spain: UNE), but not a European standard.
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LNG
LNG is an attractive option for trucks and ships due to its high energy density and low pollutant emissions.
Currently, the trucks in the EU run mainly with diesel and LNG is seen as the only option that can substitute it. LNG technology for trucks is also mature, and allows for good performance. However, the LNG market for trucks is almost inexistent only some trucks fleets are running in the EU and only 41 refuelling stations (24 LCNG, 17 LNG) are installed ( UK, Spain, Sweden, Netherlands) The main barriers for market development are the lack of infrastructures and common standards and vehicles' homologation.

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LNG
However, the international market is in fast development: China: 70,000 LNG trucks and 1,000 stations (300,000 by 2020 and 3,500 stations) USA: more than 6,000 trucks already running on LNG

LNG for vessels: the EU Marine Fuel Sulphur Directive, supporting 0,1% sulphur content in ship fuel from January 2015 in the ECAS Areas Emission Control Area for Ships) as well as the enforcement of the ECAS zones in several European seas work as a motivation towards the shifting to LNG fuels.
Nevertheless, LNG infrastructure for fuelling vessels is at a very early stage, being Norway and Sweden the first countries in developing small scale LNG terminals for bunkering purposes.
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What the Commission is proposing to develop a market for CNG vehicles and vessels? The CPT Directive
Member States shall ensure that a sufficient number of publicly accessible refuelling points are available, with maximum distances of 150 km, to allow the circulation of CNG vehicles Union-wide by 31 December 2020 at the latest. CNG refuelling points motor vehicles shall comply with the relevant EN standard, to be adopted by 2014.

The estimated impact for MS is the build-up of 654 approximately filing stations with a cost of 164 M. (No new filling stations in Germany are initially requested in Germany

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What the Commission is proposing to develop a market for LNG vehicles? The CPT Directive
Member States shall cooperate to ensure that heavy duty motor vehicles running on LNG can travel all along the roads on the TEN-T Core Network. Publicly accessible refuelling points for LNG shall be established within distances not exceeding 400 km by 31 December 2020 at the latest. LNG refuelling points motor vehicles shall comply with the relevant EN standard, to be adopted by 2014. The estimated impact for MS is the build-up of 144 approximately filing stations with a cost of 58 M. (25 filling stations in Germany with a cost of 10 M).

Transport

What the Commission is proposing to develop a market for LNG vessels ? The CPT Directive

Member States shall ensure that publicly accessible LNG refuelling points for maritime and inland waterway transport are provided in all maritime ports of the Trans-European Transport (TEN-T) Core Network by 31 December 2020 at the latest. LNG refuelling points for waterborne vessels shall comply with the relevant EN standards, to be adopted by 2014. The estimated impact for MS is the build-up of 139 approximately filing stations with a cost of 2,085 M. (22 filling stations in Germany with a cost of 330 M).

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Other Standards
The Commission has provided two mandates to the European Committee of Normalisation: M/400 concerns the adoption of the EU specifications for natural gas quality transported by NG pipelines. M/475 will provide fuel specifications allowing the injection of biomethane into the natural gas grid and and use as vehicle fuel in transport. It is expected to be adopted also at the end 2014

Transport

R&D: LNG Blue corridor project

Optimizing the complete powertrain and storage system of LNG heavy duty vehicles with respect to energy efficiency and pollutant emission Performing a large-scale demonstration to facilitate a broad market development for heavy duty vehicles running on LNG. Contributions to standards and proposals for vehicle typeapproval The consortium is composed of 27 partners from Belgium, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
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Project: LNG Blue Corridors

(EU-funded)

27 industrial partners during a 48-month project 100 new LNG trucks and 14 LNG new refuelling stations
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New opportunities for EU funding: Horizon 2020 and TEN-T

The achievement of a smart, green and integrated transport system is one of the challenges that must be tackled in the near future. Therefore, transport is one of the six key themes constituting the Horizon 2020 programme. Research and demonstration on alternative fuels transport systems will be a key part of the Transport programme. Support under TEN-T funds is given to measures to promote innovation and new technologies for transport infrastructure and facilities contributing to decarbonisation or the reduction of external costs of transport.

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Final remarks
The CPT Directive will contribute to achieve the 5% share of natural gas vehicle market in 2020 aimed by the natural gas vehicles industry LNG used in HDV are the most attractive option to mitigate of the high dependence of EU in diesel and to accomplish the limit of 0.1% sulphur content in marine fuels established by the Directive 2012/33/EU The adoption of the standard for biomethane for use in transport and injection in natural gas pipelines will be key for a large use of biomethane in tranport as well as to contribute to the achievement of the 10% RED target
Transport

Thank you for your attention!

Antonio. Tricas- Aizpun @ec.europa.eu

Transport