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SALT LAKE CITY — In an effort to better service its expanding fleet of clean air vehicles, the Utah Transit Authority has opened a new compressed natural gas fueling facility near its downtown headquarters.
The $6.5 million structure is situated just south of the agency's main administrative building, 669 W. 200 South. The facility also includes a $2.5 million high-speed, high-pressure compressor station that pumps the natural gas into the buses' tanks.
The majority of funding for the project came from a combination of federal grants with support from the Federal Transit Administration, said Matt Sibul, UTA chief planning officer.
The fueling facility and its buses are part of UTA's continuing effort to improve air quality along the Wasatch Front, he said.
"CNG is a very clean fuel," Sibul said. "Each one of these natural gas buses emits about 85 percent less pollution than those being replaced."
The new facility is designed to fuel up to 250 natural gas buses. The agency currently has 47 natural gas burning buses at its Central Bus Division, with plans to purchase more in the future.
UTA currently operates approximately 600 compressed natural gas and diesel buses in its overall fleet.
"Long term, we'd like to get a third of our fleet (composed) of CNG buses, a third electric and one-third clean diesel," he said. UTA plans to replace buses with natural gas buses as the old vehicles are phased out, he added, which would likely mean 20 to 30 buses annually as funding allows.
Compressed natural gas buses are 85 percent cleaner than pre-2007 year diesel buses, reducing an average of 17 tons of greenhouse gases per bus per year, Sibul said.
"It's part of our goal to be part of the solution along the Wasatch Front," he said.
An additional benefit of using natural gas buses is the estimated savings in using natural gas rather than diesel fuel, UTA project manager Greg Thorpe said. The cost of diesel fluctuates with the market rate of oil, while natural gas has a more stable price, he said.
Based on historical costs of diesel that UTA paid in years past, the annual savings using natural gas ranged from $10,000 to $13,000 per bus, he said. The agency currently has plans to increase its natural gas fleet to 130 buses in the near future, he noted
The compressor station operates three compressors capable of compressing the incoming high-pressure natural gas from about 280 pounds per square inch up to 3,600 pounds per square inch.
"(Using the new pumps), 35 gallons takes about five minutes to fill the tank," Thorpe said. In comparison, a typical low-pressure pump would take about 17-minutes to fill up, he said.
With the current fleet, only one compressor is needed to keep up with fueling, but as the fleet expands, then two compressors will be needed with the third serving as a reserve in case one of the compressors has an issue, he said.
Contributing: Alex Cabrero
