Piedmont Natural Gas Expands Nashville Facility
Piedmont Natural Gas said it is adding a third dispenser island at its two-year-old public compressed natural gas refueling station in Nashville, Tennessee, to serve a rapidly growing customer base that includes a mail-delivery contractor and regional haulers taking advantage of the station’s proximity to Interstate 40.
The company has more than doubled its sales of compressed natural gas over the past two years because more businesses are recognizing the economic and environmental advantages of CNG, according to PNG.
Earlier this year, the company received approval from state regulators in North Carolina and South Carolina to temporarily reduce the price of CNG by 50 cents per gasoline-gallon equivalent – passing through to customers a federal tax credit intended to expand the environmental benefits of CNG by encouraging the construction of CNG refueling stations, Charlotte, North Carolina-based Piedmont said.
It also passed the savings from the tax credit along to customers in Tennessee, where public CNG prices are unregulated, Piedmont said.
“To keep growing our share of the transportation fuel market, we’re doing everything we can to support CNG users,” Karl Newlin, Duke Energy’s senior vice president and chief commercial officer for natural gas, said in a statement.
“By passing along savings we receive from the federal tax credit, we’re doing exactly what the legislation intended, providing incentives for fleet owners and others to reduce their carbon footprint by choosing compressed natural gas,” Newlin.
In the past year, Piedmont Natural Gas has sold, delivered or used about 5 million gasoline-gallon equivalents and expects that volume to grow. About one-third of Piedmont’s own corporate fleet now runs on CNG, the company said.
Vehicles fueled by CNG release significantly lower levels of carbon dioxide than gasoline or diesel vehicles, as well as less nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide and particulates that create ground-level ozone or smog, the company said.
The company also announced expansion services to municipal refuse haulers, transit and airport shuttle fleets.
It is providing natural gas to private refueling stations for two large corporate fleets in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina. The facilities are included in a network of CNG refueling stations Piedmont serves for both companies, it said.
Piedmont is a subsidiary of Duke Energy.
