Department of Transportation representatives joined officials from Trillium CNG, Westmoreland County Transit Agency to mark the start of fueling at the facility at 1823 Business Route 66 in Greensburg.

“This P3 CNG program continues to move forward and will make use of a Pennsylvania-generated fuel resource,” Gov. Wolf said. “The benefits include more efficiency, cleaner burning fuels and lower fuel costs for our transit agencies.”

Through the $84.5 million statewide P3 project, Trillium is designing, building, financing and will operate and maintain CNG fueling stations at 29 public transit agency sites through a 20-year P3 agreement.

Other stations will be constructed over the next five years, and Trillium is also making CNG-related upgrades to existing transit maintenance facilities.

As part of the conversion in Westmoreland County, the transit agency will convert 25 diesel buses and 16 paratransit buses to CNG. The authority estimates saving more than $400,000 annually based on current diesel costs and their diesel and gas usage of roughly 415,000 gallons per year.

PennDOT’s overall P3 project includes CNG fueling accessible to the public at six transit agency sites, with the option to add to sites in the future. PennDOT will receive a 15 percent royalty, excluding taxes, for each gallon of fuel sold to the public at public sites, which will be used to support the cost of the project.

Using the P3 procurement mechanism allows PennDOT to install the fueling stations faster than if a traditional procurement mechanism were used for each site, resulting in significant estimated capital cost savings of more than $46 million.

Stations have opened at:

-- Cambria County Transportation Authority, Johnstown Facility, includes public fueling;

-- Mid Mon Valley Transportation Authority;

-- Central Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, York Facility, includes public fueling;

-- Cambria County Transportation Authority, Ebensburg Facility;

-- Westmoreland County Transportation Authority;

-- Centre Area Transportation Authority; and

-- Beaver County Transit Agency.

When the project is completed, the fueling stations will supply gas to more than 1,600 CNG buses at transit agencies across the state.

To learn more about this project, visit PennDOT’s CNG Fueling Stations Project webpage.

NewsClips:

Westmoreland Transit Fueling Growing Fleet Of Natural Gas Buses

Westmoreland Transit Natural Gas Station To Open Thursday

[Posted: Dec. 14, 2017]

12/18/2017