Huntingburg investigating natural gas powered city vehicles

“This is cutting edge, not bleeding edge technology,” Deron Hawkins, account executive with Energy Systems Group told the Huntingburg Common Council on Thursday night.

Hawkins and Installation Engineer Adam Goldstein presented the council with information and costs associated with converting 21 existing city vehicles to run on compressed natural gas with the option to switch to regular gasoline. Hawkins explained bleeding edge would make the city a guinea pig for new technology, but this had been proven in the field and several municipalities and businesses, including Energy Systems Group’s parent company Vectren, have already converted.

The gasoline/compressed natural gas option is recommended due to a loss of power with compressed natural gas at high torque or high speed requirements. The operators of the vehicles could switch over to gasoline as necessary.

Councilman Steve McPherron said he remembers about 20 years ago when Huntingburg explored the same option, “I am glad we didn’t do it then but the technology has improved greatly since.”

The price of natural gas continues to fall, here is a story from Bloomberg Business Week on recent drops, and with uncertainty over the rise of gasoline prices, Utility Superintendent Tony Traylor began to investigate the possibility of the conversion. Current compressed natural gas rates hover between $0.81 and $1.20 per equivalent gallon due to the large deposits that have been found in the United States. Hawkins stated a fracking operation was even being explored west of Tell City and could begin within five years. Fracking is a method used to extract natural gas from the shale.

Energy Systems Group would provide the city with 23 conversion kits for vehicles used by the utilities department; 21 are for current vehicles and two kits would be available for future car conversions. They quoted the city $222,856 for the kits but a fueling station would need to be built locally as the closest fueling stations are currently in Evansville and Sellersburg. The station would be an additional $356,000.

Savings for the conversion would be from the lower maintenance costs —after an initial break in period vehicles oil changes can occur at 10,000 miles rather than 3 to 4000 recommended for gasoline powered engines and the lower fuel costs. Hawkins told the council the annual savings for the city would start at around $43,000 per year and projected a return on the initial investment within a 14 year period.

Councilman McPherron was interested in maintenance issues and the longevity of the converted vehicles. Installation Engineer Adam Goldstein explained the systems were much cleaner than gasoline engines and the wear and tear on the engines was significantly less. He stated their company has vehicles with over 400,000 miles on them and the engines look like new.

Goldstein also explained that Ruxer Ford was qualified to work on the systems and all major vehicle manufacturers have letters stating the conversions would not void any warranties.

In addition the conversion kits the city purchased could be switched from one vehicle to a replacement vehicle as long as the cylinder number was the same. McPherron remained skeptical about the long term ability to switch from one model to another as new technology changes the way vehicle engines operate.

In the end, Mayor Denny Spinner recommended it was worth considering and stated the city should continue to study the issue.