GRIP CEE 2017 / Main Report

5.7 Conclusion on Natural Gas as a Transport Fuel

In conclusion, the environmental benefits of natural gas are well established. Gas as a transport fuel is a proven, mature, and reliable technology with readily available passenger vehicles, trucks and ships at competitive costs. As it has been shown in the chapters above, the use of NGVs results in lower greenhouse gas emissions, fewer local pollutants, and reduced noise. Thus, it contributes to cleaner and healthier ambient air. It is a substantially welcome development for urban areas. Over the last ten years, natural gas as a transportation fuel has seen significant success in terms of adoption in various countries around the world and in the CEE region. NG in transportation also brings economic advantages, as it offers the lowest total costs of ownership for high mileage vehicles. Despite the unexpected fall of crude oil prices in 2013–2015, which decelerated NGV expansion, crude oil prices started to rise again in the second half of 2016. It is expected that over the long term the crude oil price will continue to rise as oil reserves are being depleted. The stringent emission standards of EURO 6 make diesel vehicles technically overcomplicated and lead to a further increase of their total cost of ownership. These conditions provide NGVs a perfect opportunity to demonstrate their real val- ue and to secure recognition within the transportation market. Future development will also be driven by Directive 94/2014/EU on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure that should help all Member States of the CEE region to implement a dense network of refuelling stations for natural gas vehicles by the year 2030. Reliable legal and regulatory frameworks for investments in CNG and LNG passen- ger vehicles, trucks, ships and refuelling infrastructure and equal, non-discrimina- tory, transparent terms for all kinds of fuels are needed and should be supported by policy makers. Investment costs can be optimised through the integrated develop- ment of refuelling points at the existing petrol filling stations and the existing gas infrastructure, such as via pipelines, LNG terminals, and distribution grids. Concerning the marine usage of LNG, the IMO regulation on sulphur content in marine fuel oil should boost the use of LNG. The future development of NGVs will increase their market share in road transpor- tation, which will result in the increased utilisation of NG as fuel for NGVs. Together with an increase of LNG utilisation in maritime transport, this represents an impor- tant opportunity for the TSOs to facilitate the transmission of additional volumes of NG for transportation sector or at least to compensate for the decline of gas consumption for heating due to efficiency measures in house construction. In any case, the use of natural gas and green gases in transportation is an occasion to target and expand the TSOs’ businesses in the CEE region and to make another step towards reaching the EU climate targets in an efficient way.

Central Eastern Europe GRIP 2017 |

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