Demand for RNG Surged in 2017, Clean Energy Fuels Reports
Clean Energy Fuels Corp. announced that sales of Redeem, its renewable natural gas product, grew 32% in 2017 to 79 million gallons compared with 60 million gallons in 2016.
The 2017 volume from Clean Energy represents more than half of the overall United States renewable natural gas, or RNG, production as reported by the Environmental Protection Agency through December, according to the Newport Beach, Calif.-based company.
“Programs such as the Low Carbon Fuel Standard and Renewable Fuel Standard continue to provide a path for RNG production growth, which allows fleets to meet greenhouse gas reduction goals, and we have the product and the infrastructure to help them reach those goals,” Tyler Henn, vice president and general manager of Clean Energy Renewables, said in a statement.
Clean Energy launched Redeem in 2013 in California and sold 14 million gasoline gallon equivalents that year. Today it is sold in 20 states.
The company’s trucking customers include Ryder System Inc. and Kroger Co.
Ryder Supply Chain Services ranks No. 13 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest for-hire carriers in North America.
Kroger ranks No. 22 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest private carriers in North America.
Separately, U.S. and Canadian natural gas Class 8 truck retail sales rose 9% year-to-date through November, ACT Research Co. reported, with the gain coming after a flat 2017 third quarter.
“Despite the uncertainty spurred by the current climate of changing environmental winds and low oil prices, the reading indicates continued interest in natural gas as a transportation fuel in the U.S. Class 8 market,” ACT General Manager Ken Vieth said in a company release.
RNG is essentially biogas, the gaseous product of the decomposition of organic matter, and can be used as a transportation fuel in the form of compressed natural gas or liquefied natural gas, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
