Canadian fleets are taking a fresh look at natural gas as they look to decarbonize their operations. And for good reason. Natural gas is readily available and cost effective, often costing less than diesel.

It also slashes GHG emissions by about 20%. More if it’s renewable, in which case it can actually be carbon neutral or even carbon negative. The biggest knock against CNG has been the lack of a 15-liter CNG engine in the marketplace. Something Cummins solved by announcing it will offer just that this year.

The opportunity presented by natural gas was discussed at the green tech educational session at this year’s truck world. Bruce Winchester, executive director of the Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance kicked off the discussion by explaining why there’s a renewed interest in natural gas as a truck transportation fuel.

Bruce Winchester: It’s a real technology that exists. We’ve got a fueling network, a particularly strong one in Ontario, Quebec — a North American fuelling network, you can feed into.

Under the Clean Fuel regulation, which is a federal Environment Canada regulation, you can generate credits using conventional natural gas, not talking about renewable, just conventional natural gas. So, we think there’s a lot of interest and a lot of opportunity to start reducing emissions now, and by now I mean this year.

Driving experience

Asked if the driver experience is different with a natural gas-powered truck Winchester said it depends largely on application, but that the coming 15 liter product appears to be very well received.

Bruce Winchester: We hear a lot about how important it is to reduce emissions. We need to reduce them today, not some day in the future. Gas gets you there.

The fleet experience

Jonathan Royal is senior director of asset management with C.A.T., a fleet that has plenty of experience running natural gas in its linehaul fleet. He shared his company’s experience to date using the 12-liter Cummins natural gas engine since 2015.

Jonathan Royal: So C.A.T., for the ones who don’t know it, we’re a Quebec-based company, we’re based in Coteau-du-Lac near the Ontario-Quebec border. So, the adventure of CNG started a lot before 2015. But in December 2015, we added our first Freightliner with a Cummins 12-liter in it.

And since then we’ve ran 100 sleepers on CNG with the 12-liter, and also 10 day cabs. And so far, obviously those trucks are quite old right now, they accumulated a lot of mileage, and we’re looking for the obviously the new generation of Cummins engine, the 15-liter, which is very promising.

So far for us, we’ve been running from Quebec, all the way down to Laredo with those CNG trucks and it has been a great success story.

Challenges

Of course, running a commercial trucking fleet on natural gas comes with some challenges. Shops where those trucks are serviced have to be properly equipped, and the engines can be more temperamental if not properly maintained.

Jonathan Royal: Well go back to 2015. So even today, since it was not that popular, so developing a network of support, the network of the refueling network was already present. We had an agreement with a supplier, so they developed a few stations mainly for us.

But the biggest thing is to keep up on maintenance. A diesel truck will give up a bit if you’re surpassing your scheduled maintenance, but CNG is a bit different.

You’ve got to be careful with it. You’ve got to treat it well. But if you do so, for sure the truck will perform great.

Kyle Cooper, business development specialist, low carbon solutions and transportation with natural gas supplier Enbridge, is expecting interest in the fuel will only increase. Here’s why:

Kyle Cooper: What it allows is for fleets that have come to us historically and identified themselves as maybe a hard to electrify type of application.

So, we’re seeing the big, big move in the heavy-haul type industry and longhaul as well. So, fleets that aren’t, you know, they’re out for days and weeks at a time and not going back to the yard but do require that additional horsepower.

So with a 15-liter we’re also seeing a 500 horsepower engine that’s running on natural gas with comparable torque to the diesel 15-liter as well, which is which is massive. So, if you’re already running, you know 500 horsepower engine today, it’s directly interchangeable to hit those marks.