Webinar on CNG Infrastructure Costs (Text Version)

This is a text version of the video for Webinar on CNG Infrastructure Costs presented on Sept. 16, 2014.

COORDINATOR: Welcome. Thank you for standing by. Throughout today's conference, all participants will remain in listen-only mode. During the Q&A portion of today's call, you may press star 1 on your touchtone phone if you would like to ask a question. Today's call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Now I'd like to turn the call over to your first speaker today, Mr. Dennis Smith. Thank you. You may begin when ready.

DENNIS SMITH: Okay. Thanks. Welcome, everybody. This is Dennis Smith. I'm the National Clean Cities Director at our Department of Energy, our headquarters office here in Washington, D.C. And the subject we're going to talk about today is CNG infrastructure costs.

Anybody who's been in this for a while knows that's one of the most common questions that gets asked is how much does a CNG station cost. And it really—there's no straight answer for that.

If somebody gives you a straight answer and says the average cost is a certain amount, well they probably haven't been in it long enough to know how—all the variables and all the things that can cause it to change.

I mean some of us say it's similar to asking how much does a house cost or what's it cost to remodel your kitchen. There's a whole lot of other questions that have to be asked and answered before you can get to that end. A lot of things influence the cost, a wide range of price tags and things that—factors that can change it.

I know in my career I've personally been involved with CNG fueling stations that cost as little as $5,000 on the low end and some that were initially quoted for upwards of $5 million on the high end. And I can assure you neither one of those were typical and in some cases involved refurbished used equipment versus new versus do a lot of stuff that's probably not necessary.

So a lot of what we're going to talk about today is going to help you ask the right questions to know better, you know, what you really need and what your expectations should be and what can alter or change the cost so that you can be smarter about how you're planning for these things.

And also how to ask for help and how to pick some people who can be advisors to you to make sure that, you know, you're learning from other folks who have got a good experience there.

We've create a white paper with Clean Cities that's available on the Alternative Fuels Data Center website right now that provides an overview of these costs for CNG fueling infrastructure and we'll be referencing some of that information here today. But you can also follow up and get that and we'll be sending the links out and providing that—where you can find that.

Our goal is really to provide you with an overview so you better understand the factors that affect the cost of the station. It's not really intended to give you enough exact information to be able to, you know, do a quote, to bid a project out to somebody as much as it is to give some rule of thumb numbers and a good gut feel for what a station should cost.

So if you're trying to work with someone who needs a station and they've been told, you know, all stations cost $2 million, you can really help size it up and get them on the right track to know what is probably more in the ballpark for what they are needing. And we'll provide some examples of different kinds of stations and sizes and so forth as we go through this today.

During the webinar we're first going to hear a general overview of CNG stations by Mark Smith who's also on our team here at DOE headquarters on the Clean Cities Program and then also John Gonzales from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado.

Then we'll hear some specific station examples from CNG station providers. First Jeremy Talbot from Phoenix Energy will describe smaller CNG station examples that he's worked with. Then we'll hear from Graham Barker from ANGI Energy Systems to describe a medium sized CNG station as an example.

Then after all the presentations we'll have a good Q&A session so that you can ask questions and we'll queue you as to how you can do that as far as if you want to ask a question live and then also throughout the session today if you've got written questions that you want to text in on your screen right there. Then we'll be queuing those up to answer as well.

The whole webinar today will be recorded and the presentations slides will be posted on the Clean Cities website so that if you get interrupted or you just want to review it again later, it'll be available to you.

So with that, let me start off by turning it over to our first speaker, Mr. Mark Smith.

MARK SMITH: Thank you Dennis. Good afternoon everybody and thanks for taking time out of your afternoon to join us for this webinar. As Dennis said, we're going to kind of start off at the high level overview and really go through and talk about a number of different factors here that affect CNG costs.

We're going to look first at key components, the various types of stations and station configurations from fast fill, time fill combination fill. Then we're going to look at the different factors that can impact costs sometimes negatively, sometimes maybe even positively. We'll get into more details on the station and equipment costs and also the operation costs.

Some of this for some of you folks might be some information you already know. There may be something that going to be new for some of you. So we appreciate your patience as we go through this.

This next slide really kind of just breaks down in a very simple basis of the key components and costs of a CNG station. And by no means again is this every nut, bolt and washer but kind of the bigger parts of the station.

Just as a quick run through, the first item on there is the compressor. So basically what we're doing is taking the natural gas that's supplied by the gas utility that comes into the pipeline to the site. We need to compress that, as you might know, in order to get the energy out of the natural gas as the gaseous fuel as to be compressed.

So that's what the compressor is doing is compressing the gas so that it can then be dispensed into the vehicle at 3600 PSI or 3000 PSI in the case of those vehicles. And we—as Dennis was saying, there's a big range on these prices and that's certainly true with the compressors.

They can be looking at anywhere from, you know, a small FuelMaker type single refueling appliance for $5000 up to, you know, $500,000 and higher depending on how many compressors are needed for the station.

The next item is the dispenser. And the dispenser is what actually puts the fuel, the compressed natural gas into your vehicle. And that very much looks like and operates the same as the gasoline dispenser that you probably encounter when you fill up your vehicle with gasoline.

We're going to be talking about time fill stations here. So we're going to be referring to the time fill post. And you'll see—I'll give a better example of that when we get to some slides here in a few seconds.

For fast fill you need to have storage vessels on site because what happens—remember we have to compress that gas from the gas line and then we can either dispense it into a vehicle for a time fill. But if we're going to do fast fill, which again is replicating your experience with the gasoline station, once that gas is compressed it needs to be stored. And that's what the storage vessels do.

If you're going to have public access or even for many fleets you need to have a card reader and that's what allows you to run your Visa, Discovery, American Express, Master Card to pay for it at a public access station or many times with—depending on a fleet application for a WEX or a Voyager card or some other fueling card.

You'll need a card reader so that users can A, use the station and oftentimes from a fleet aspect then. Their usage is tracked through many of the reports that's provided by those fleet management companies.

Another component is the gas dryer and we'll talk about that one here in a few more slides as well. So that's just a real basic overview of kind of the major components of a CNG station. By no means is this—as I said, not every component. There's some other things in here and we'll show those in a second as well.

We'll talk about the types of CNG station if you advance the slide here. So basically three types of stations, a fast fill station, which is very similar again to what you would experience with a gasoline station and dispensing liquid fills; a time fill station. Sometimes it's referred to as slow fill.

Like Dennis, I spend a lot of time on the natural gas side of the industry in my private sector days. And never liked to use the term slow fill because it always seems to have a negative connotation. But certainly time fill lends itself perfectly to fleets that come back every night to a central location. If they're going to be sitting for 10 or 12 hours, that's a perfect opportunity for them to fill up.

And then we have what are known as combination fill stations. And this may be a station where you'll have time fill as the primary fueling source but a fast fill backup. See this oftentimes maybe with applications such as school buses where they could use the time fill 90% of the time but just in case they need to take kids to a game or on a field trip and need to put in additional fuel, they can have that fast fill option.

And then what you see there are a couple pictures on the bottom left. You can see is a Washington, D.C. Department of Public Works. They've been running natural gas vehicles in their fleet here in D.C. for well over 15 years.

And unfortunately that white Honda Civic is something that if you live or work her in D.C. and your have your car parked, you don't want to see that when you come out because those are used by the D.C. parking enforcement folks here and they have been for many years. So we like to see those cars driving around and know that they're using natural gas but you just don't want to see one parked in front of your car.

On the right hand side it's a picture of the town of Oyster Bay, New York up in Long Island where they're operating about 45 natural gas refuse trucks and those posts with the hoses you come down—you see coming down are the time fill posts.

So when the drivers return back to the—back to the yard at the end of their day, they can plug in the hoses and the vehicles can fill up while they sit there overnight and they're ready to go the next morning.

So I showed you that slide a few seconds ago on the different components of these stations. And here's kind of what they look like in a real simple schematic.

So reading from left to right we've got that gas supply that comes into the location. Typically we'll have an inlet gas dryer. Oftentimes there can be moisture in the gas. And sometimes in various parts of the country sometimes that moisture content is higher. So it's always beneficial to have a gas drying there that can dry the gas and remove that moisture.

From there that third component from the left is the compressor. And again, that's what's compressing the gas up to 4000 PSI and higher. And then it goes into the storage. That's the next schematic you see there.

And you see a low, medium and high. So think about this. So we've got this gas stored at high pressure but now how do we get this high pressure gas into the vehicle. And we do it by basically equalizing the pressure that's in those storage containers to the vessel—the storage vessel onboard the vehicle.

So you'll see those—there's typically three banks of storage, a low, medium and high bank. So as that pressure is equalizing, you have higher pressures kicking in from the storage. First starting off with the low pressure as the gas quantity rises in the vehicle and the pressure comes up and the medium bank kicks in and then finally as the vehicle fill nears completion, then the high pressure bank will kick in. So again, we can get that full fill into the vehicle.

And then finally to the right where you see the drawings of the two vehicles are natural gas dispensers. And as you can see, they look and mimic very much what you find at a gasoline station.

The next one we're going to show is a—here we go. Is a time fill system. Again, very similar to what we just saw except the one missing component is the storage containers—is the storage vessels for the gas once it's compressed.

And that can be sometimes one of the advantages to a time fill station. If a fleet knows that time fill will work for them, oftentimes they can realize a little bit of cost savings by not having to incur the capital expenditure necessary for the storage vessels at the site.

So again, going from left to right, we've got the gas supply. We're coming into the dryer. We're compressing the gas. But this time now we have a kind of a master time fill panel that will as those vehicles come in will be able to tell who needs the most fuel and it's kind of the path of least resistance.

And then those vehicles will begin to fill up again during the course of the evening and overnight while they're parked so they're ready to roll out the next morning.

And finally, this is the combination fill station we talked about where again you're using the time fill as probably your primary fuel source and you're having that fast fill dispensers as a backup system. And again, so here we have kind of a combination of components.

We still have our time fill panel to help us with those vehicles that are filling overnight and then we have our storage—our low, medium and high bank storage to help with the fast fill. And again, those same components, the drying and the compressor obviously.

And with that, let's move into kind of the types of stations. We hear about public stations and private stations and public private stations and all—what does all that mean?

So public stations means exactly that. Open to the public. So that means that as a retail consumer you could access those stations or what we're seeing a lot of recently with the develop of a lot of new CNG infrastructure is kind of a fleet public access as well where a lot of stations are being sized not only to service the consumer but also to service other fleets in the area.

And so again, that experience would be not unlike any consumer or fleet driver would encounter during his experiences with the gas—with filling with gasoline or diesel.

Private stations are exactly that. Typically these are stations owned by transit agencies or gas utilities or refuse companies. And those stations are built specifically for their own use and do not allow public use.

Although we have found in some cases where some private fleet stations while they may not be open to having the retail consumer come in or the public come in for liability and insurance issue, oftentimes if they can work out an arrangement that works for both parties, they might allow another fleet to come in and fuel from their station.

And then finally the third model we see there is the public private station. And we see a lot of these models exist today. Refuse is a good example where again a waste management or someone might have their own station behind the fence. It allow them to time fill their trucks overnight.

But then on the outside of the fence of their property they're able to put in a driveway with a card reader to dispense there and allow the public or other fleets to come fill.

And you see a couple pictures here. These are of Washington Gas, our gas utility here in the D.C. area that services Virginia and D.C. and Maryland. And this is from their facility in Springfield, Virginia.

So that again is just kind of a quick overview of the types of stations and the different components involved. With that, I'm going to turn it now over to John Gonzales from NREL and John will dive into more detail on the various factors that can affect station cost as well as jumping into some examples. John.

JOHN GONZALES: Mark, thank you for that introduction. I will be, as you said, going into the key factors and costs relating to natural gas stations. Now one thing we just need to understand is, as Dennis mentioned earlier, there are a lot of variables here.

But what we did is we pulled a lot of this data from recovery act stations and also from different industry providers. That has given us some pretty good background on some of these costing. We'll go through that here in a little bit.

But just want to let you know there's multiple things that can affect the station costs. And so we start out with really every station is different and that costs can be different.

The design and the footprint will change that. The location. As we know, we always hear location, location, location. That can really change the cost of a site. And also what we're going to do is just kind of give some overall factors and really what goes into a station and the costs that go into building these stations really derive from the fleet or the customers' needs.

And that's really where it leads into that, deriving into the customers' needs. What type of vehicles are going to be fueling there? What is the fuel quality to being with? Mark had mentioned about moisture in the gas and how much the gas needs to be treated before it gets to the vehicle. Really that's drawing and filtration.

What is the dry cycle? What's the duty cycle of that fleet? When are they going to be fueling, during the day, at night? Can it be time fill? Can it be fast fill? How much fuel is it going to take? Is it going to be a van or a car? Is it going to be more like this UPS stub van? Or is it going to be a Class 8 truck? That really changes that fueling window and also the public private piece.

If there is a public fleet that's fueling there but a private component where people can fill on the outside, that can change it as well. So there's a bunch of different things depending on the station's application and need.

Here's a couple pictures really talking about a couple different configurations of sites. These here show really the different ways you can look at a fueling station. The one there on the bottom left is a station that has a time fill and a fast fill component to it on the same property where you can see where they're a different layout and that will affect the cost.

And then when you start talking about that, how much fuel do we need in a given window, you need to start looking at the gas pressure that you have available to the site. The higher the better. It's not always critical but it's pretty important to have good pressure, gas inlet pressure to the site.

The site layout. Do you have good ingress egress availability to the site so the vehicles are going to use. That will take a little bit larger footprint so you want to look at those.

Also look at the power supply available. What do you have in the area? Will utility need to bring in additional power for what you're looking at? These compressors, as Mark mentioned, depending on the size of the compressor can range in horsepower and that will range in your power requirements for that site.

Site layout, sight constraints, same thing. Basically how much room do you have to work with there? And also proximity to a gas pipeline. It's not uncommon that you might have gas that's in the street that's high pressure but the utility might now necessarily always want to give you that.

So you want to find out what is your real proximity to the gas pipeline that you will be able to use for that site. That will also help determine how the compressors can be designed and built for the need of that site.

Another thing that we always talk about is how do we build a site for expansion? Do we look at redundancy and also backup generation? And these pieces here are pretty critical when you look at a station moving forward.

The picture in the lower left shows the ability to add an additional dispenser. If there is a growing demand in the future for this site, it's always best to put that equipment in the ground if you can when you first build the site because it's considerable more cost when you put it in at a later date.

So that's where it shows a dispenser. You can see that lower right where it has two compressors there. That's the redundancy piece that we're talking about. And traditionally if you have the ability to, we usually like to see the compressor be a little bit smaller but two of them just in case for some reason if the compressor does have a mechanical issue or two, if the compressor itself has to have maintenance done, the other one can be turned off.

And then finally is backup generation. We've seen this in some locations where it makes good sense where power is not as consistent as we'd like to see it. And also if you have an emergency where you lose power, this can provide the station to allow gas to be flowing for emergency services that might be needed in the area and these vehicles that would be operating on natural gas.

Key here on this next slide is always get the HJ involved, the authority having jurisdiction. In most cases the fire marshal. But we want to get those folks involved early and often because they are going to be a key component to making sure that your site and the preparation for the site will be as efficient as you possibly can moving forward. So we definitely want to have those folks involved early on.

Keep in mind the operational costs. The operation costs include the fuel costs, your electricity, your maintenance. There are quite a few things that go into that that you want to be aware of. What does it cost to bring the gas over there? Does it need to have a gas meter? Do you have electric demand chargers?

And those are all factored into your overall operational costs. So just put those in when you're factoring those. And least, not forget the liability insurance piece to the station where that is where some of the challenges between public and private partnerships can work. But we have seen in many cases where that is a—that's a hurdle that can be overcome.

This here is a picture of a station that was done through the recovery act project. This is one of Lee Grannis' sites to the New Haven Clean Cities. This is an example of how you can utilize used equipment where you have two compressors in this case so you do have redundancy.

You have storage. This station was in about the 350 to $400,000 price range. It's a real simple station. You can see it has a small footprint, small compression, dispenser right there along with the balers to protect it.

One of the options for a smaller fleet looking to start out with natural gas with the ability to expand at a later date and also a compressor system like this you could put time fill with it very easily.

This here is a little bit larger station with newer equipment but with a single compressor. It has the ability to fuel a little bit more than that prior one did because it has a little bit larger compressor but not much.

You can see the cost change because the price of equipment is new equipment versus used. So in different cases if you have the ability to look at new versus used, but then you can also see in this picture here that it does have the room for expansion.

So if they do want to put a redundant compressor in at a later date they can and that's what that pad on the far right bought them there is. And you can see that opening there. That is so you can add an additional compressor at a later date.

Want to kind of point out this banner on the top. This is our infrastructure cost publication that was put together and released her just a few weeks ago. This is where a lot of this information is housed. We're going to go through this pretty quick here especially the next few slides because there's a lot of information.

Feel free to refer back to this infrastructure cost document. It has all this as a backup. So don't feel like you have to be rushed to write it down right now because there's a lot of information I'm going to go over here moving forward. But it's all included in those documents.

Once again, we call it a ballpark. It's really a good estimate. But based on a lot of different data that we pulled in. And these costs include the engineering equipment and installation.

Now we understand that every site is different and every site can have its own challenges. So remember that there can be some differences that'll change these costs. But these are a good place to start from.

This is kind of the basic time fill when Mark was talking about a FuelMaker, a very small compressor where you have basically one cubic foot a gallon—one standard cubic feet of gas per minute that this compressor can compress, which is about a half a gallon per hour.

This is the old fill that we're remembering and used to. That's in about the 55 to $6500 ballpark. And then we talk about a small FuelMaker what Jeremy I think will talk about here is an FMQ. That is more in the 9 to $10,000 ballpark. It's about one gallon per hour. One gallon per hour. So that's very small for more like a single type of vehicle.

Then we get a little bit bigger, still pretty small when it's all said and done. In that 45 to 75 range. I don't need to read through all these because there is a lot to it. But what it does it shows you a little bit kind of that range. Not a very large compressor. This is really based on a FuelMaker; what they call a quad, five pounds in light gas pressure.

And you do have a little bit of storage, not much. Not much but you have a little bit of storage and a single dispenser. There is no—and when we say a single dispenser here, it's really a hose drop like we're used to seeing on a time fill hose.

And we can get another type of time fill here without having storage. That's the next example here. So you can see kind of the reduction in storage. There's a little bit of reduction in cost there.

We get a little bit larger here. This is where Dennis started saying that, you know, you can go from 5000 to five million. And you can go all points in between.

This here is kind of based on a fast fill station. And you can see these are basically almost the same. You do have more compression and you have storage in the fast fill application where you really have very little storage in the time fill application. And you can see those costs how they can be there and how they can vary some.

And really the thing you see different as you remove storage and you also have a smaller compressor, which is some of that we'll call iron costs or the metal—the compression and the storage equipment that will change that cost some. Once again, this is all in the document—in the station cost infrastructure document that was released here just a few weeks ago.

We're getting into a larger station here. This is getting more like what you would see at a retail application for pickup trucks, vans, cars. We're not really talking too big as far as Class 8. That's not really this application here.

But you can see below more what you would be seeing in a common school bus fleet, a smaller refuse fleet that is starting to look at stations and how they would be able to fill their vehicles overnight.

And they still range but you can see that they definitely have a different amount of fuel that they can deliver on a gallon per hour basis. Once again, these things can change depending on need but these are some good costs to kind of start from.

And here is a very large station. We say 1.2 to 1.5. That can go larger than that. But really that's probably a very good starting point for those larger stations that have the ability to fill and do a fast fill or what we would call a direct fill in a Class 8 type application for refuse type trucks that need to come in, fill and leave.

So there are different needs and different compressor applications for these. And the one thing we also need to understand as we get larger in compression, we go back to that gas and lead pressure and that gas volume and it becomes even more critical to make sure that you work with your local utilities to establish that on the front end to make sure you have enough to supply on the backend for the vehicles themselves.

And next I'd like to turn it over to Jeremy with Phoenix Energy. Jeremy.

JEREMY TABLOT: John, I appreciate it. Thank you for having us everyone. We're a Birmingham based company here in Alabama. And we've been installing stations. I'm going to quick do a couple of these initial slides and kind of get to the company profile.

You know, one of the things that's important whenever you're choosing a company as the CNG industry is growing is making sure that you select the right company.

You know, something to consider heavily is going to be the experienced, the industry knowledge and things like that because whether you're building a station for you house or actually for your business, code, you know, things like that, inspections, permitting, those are going to be some key factors that come into play.

So for us we're a family owned operation. And for instance we've got Ken Hyde, our company President who is a former manager at a company here called Alagasco, which is one of the largest utility districts in Alabama. So quite a bit of experience.

And rolling to the next slide. One of the things that everybody will see is a list of certifications. Now ASC, CSA, those are going to be specific to vehicles and to tanks. And we've also got certain kit manufacturers as well where you can find our certifications listed.

And again, those are important because you don't want just anybody showing up and installing your equipment because the installation is a very key part of the functionality of the station.

Next slide is going to be planning for a CNG station. You know, again, as touched on before, some of the things that need to heavily—be heavily considered are going to be number of vehicles per day, fueling patterns of the vehicles. Are the vehicles idle at night? Do the company employees take the vehicles home?

Minimum and maximum daily flow. Now a lot of that's going depend on the vehicle, you know, the driving habits. You know, is it in service all day or is it in service part of the day?

Backup fuel and redundancy. Again, do you want one compressor or do you want, as mentioned before, multiple compressors in the event one goes down or maintenance is needing to be performed?

Do you want to capture that financial data or vehicle info whenever it comes time to refuel a vehicle? Amount of space. Also, you know, that's going to be in relation to the actual station. How much space do you have to work with? You know, do you have a large plot of land or do you have a small parking lot?

And then of course funding available. Now the funding available, you know, whether you're a private consumer or all the way up to a government municipality, there's all sorts of funding available. And one of the great benefits of Clean Cities coalition is they have resources to access that funding and get everybody rolling.

So again, with the station considerations of land purchase, who owns the land? Is there a utility service that's adequate enough to run the equipment there? You know, do you have single-phased power or three-phased power?

Now things like that would be determined upfront depending on the needs. It's not uncommon for a customer to say this is what we want to accomplish. These are the amount of vehicles we have. And this is the driving habits of them. Here's the locations that we have. And as mentioned before location, location, location; you know, the location can definitely make or break the cost.

So some locations are more suitable than others. Site development, permitting, construction costs; again, this is where your company comes in and whether it's us or ANGI or any other company that's out there, you know, you need to heavily consider your company and their experience level because not all stations are the same. There is no one size fits all. Once you start getting up into a certain range of vehicles, you need to use up a lot of fuel in one day.

The fueling equipment, compression, dryers, storage, fencers. If you want to be metering and data capturing. Again, that's going to come whatever you're doing with your sales rep at your company that you're purchasing your equipment from as far as sizing your station. You know, they should be able to recommend all of those components because they are again key components into sizing you station.

Now this is some of the—now again, I'm going to be speaking on some of the smaller compressors and I believe we're leaving it with the next presenter to go into the medium stations.

So for this you'll see the first two bullet points, which one is going to be home refueling units and the second one, which is small fleet. Now the home refueling unit, as mentioned before, that's going to be the fill in the FMQ2.

The fill does about one gallon an hour meaning if you pull you vehicle up to your house and you plug it in and you press start, it's going to refuel at the rate of one gallon an hour. So or, excuse me, half a gallon an hour. I've got my notes backwards.

So if you're refueling a vehicle that has five gallons onboard then it's going to take up to ten hours to refuel that vehicle. Now that's the slowest compressor that's out there but it's also the cheapest and most affordable and it's very economical for people who have vehicles with small tanks like Honda Civics.

Then we get up into a home refueling unit that's around the $9000 range, which is going to be an FMQ2. Now that is a one gallon an hour. So if you have a five gallon tank onboard your vehicle, it will take five hours to refuel you vehicle.

Those compressors in particular are very ideal for refueling at home at night while you're doing nothing with you vehicle. You literally pull up at your house, plug it in and push start and walk away. And they will automatically shut off once the vehicle is full. Now again, those are slow fill units.

Now moving on to the next bullet is going to me small fleet. Now this is where the FMQ8 or the quad as referred to earlier comes into play. We have two options. One is with storage and one is without storage. And you can see the cost varies between those.

Now again, the variance in cost comes primarily from the amount of vehicles and their fueling patterns or habits. A medium fleet as well—once we get into a medium fleet, five to ten vehicles, we start breaking out of the FuelMaker category and we start getting into other brands of compressors whether it's ANGI, Bauer, CH4, et cetera. And then we start getting into a three-digit price range or, excuse me, a six-digit price range without storage and definitely with storage.

FuelMaker. Touching on the FuelMaker product line. Now again, this is one of the most common units that has been around for the home consumer market. It can be installed indoors so of course it's with the U.S. standard, which is 3600 PSI. And it is known as a slow fill unit.

Now and there's some photos later on in the slide that will show some installations where it's installed in a garage. It's very small. It hangs on a wall. It's very lightweight and it's very quiet as well.

Now again, this unit produces half a gallon an hour and less importantly it'll automatically stop when the vehicle is full. So you don't have to be present the entire time.

FMQ2. Now this is again another FuelMaker product and you'll see the unit right here and again right here in the bottom slide. The FMQ2 one of the great benefits of it other than being a slow fill unit like it's a little to fill is the fact that it can refuel not one but two vehicles at the same time.

So it does reduce the output rate if you're filling two vehicles. But again, it allows you to fuel a husband and a wife at the same time. So it makes it very ideal for a family that's growing with natural gas.

Last but not least in the FuelMaker product line is going to be the FMQ8, which is basically four FMQ2s, which is the unit I just showed you previously. One thing that I've left out that's very important to know is all of these units run on single-phase power.

So single-phase power for those of you that are wondering is available at pretty much everybody's house in the U.S. If you have three-phase power at your house, you have one impressive house.

It's only a small amount of inlet pressure required to operate the vehicles or, excuse me, the refueling unit. And if you have natural gas available to your house, you can install these units at your house.

Now jumping that forward, the FMQ8 is more ideal for small businesses or small fleets. You know, it breaks out of the appliance rating category so it's going to be more of a small commercial application. And it also requires more inlet pressure than what's available at most houses.

However, this one produces four gallons an hour. So you can refuel at a—with a slow fill on this, you can refuel at a much faster rate than the FMQ2 or the fill unit.

This is a couple installation examples. One, this is the fill unit here on the left side hanging on the wall of the garage. And this is the FMQ2 over here, top right. And you'll see the hose is actually running to the front of the vehicle.

And then this one right here on the bottom right hand corner is actually the FMQ8. And as you'll see right here as well, it's got storage attached to it and the dryer is actually in the background.

So this is—this one here with the FMQ8 is actually one of the more ideal setups for those that are looking to get into a fast fill setup that don't have a lot of vehicles to refuel at one time.

Here's a couple more installation examples. Again, the fill unit hanging in the wall of the garage. And as you can see, the vent runs outside—the outside atmosphere so you can actually shut the garage door and still meet code. The FMQ2 and it's got some vehicle ballage to protect it through fuel the vehicle.

And then this on down here on the very bottom is two FMQ8s with a dryer in the middle. And then of course they've got storage on site. So this is their fast fill post. And then over here this is actually their slow fill post on the right side. So this entire site down here on the bottom is what you would call a combo site where you would have the option to time fill or fast fill.

And that wraps me up. I believe I'll turn it over to Graham over at ANGI.

GRAHAM BARKER: Hi. Good afternoon everybody. I'm Graham Barker. I've only been with ANGI for about six months but I think a lot of you may know me from previous lives. I've been in the CNG industry for quite a while.

But I think most of you are familiar with ANGI. It's been around for over 30 years. Did some of the first aerial packages for CNG and gone through a couple of changes throughout the years.

The last big ones were in 2012 when we moved into a brand new facility that has an excellent testing bench and a lot of space to build equipment. And then there's probably a lot of you have seen this year ANGI became a wholly own subsidiary of Gilbarco Veeder-Root.

It was decided by Gilbarco that with CNG business was a good fit to go with their current gasoline business so we are now a total standalone entity but while under the Gilbarco umbrella.

ANGI's experience in compressors primarily is from 50 horsepower all the way up to 800 horsepower but the typical compressors we're doing these days are between 200 to 300 horsepower.

Over the 30 years we've built probably 1400 stations. That was the last count I did see. We can do engine drive, electric drive, single, duplex. We do some trailers and we have the ability to do anything up to 65,000 pounds in our factory.

What I've been asked to do today is a case study of a school district in Pennsylvania. This was a project that took a little while to do. But this was a school district that housed 74 buses in their fleet in the Philadelphia area.

The fleet is increasing in age or was. They had about 35 buses that were going to be replaced. So they made the decision that instead of buying diesel buses they'd move into CNG buses. And they have a phased in replacement program; Year 1 14, Year 2 11 and Year 3 10 buses.

I think we're already at the Year 1 and Year 2 buses. They've taken advantages of some of the grants in Pennsylvania to help offset the incremental cost of alternate fuel vehicles.

The base load for the initial phase was about 390 gallons a day. But the station has to have the capability to get up to around 585 diesel gallons when all their buses are complete. As I said, the school district got grants from Pennsylvania and they're also doing some conversions of existing diesel engines.

The Eastern Pennsylvania Alliance for Clean Transportation, which I know is a mouthful – I still like to call them Philly Clean Cities—were a big help in the school district getting the grants for the vehicles.

The station cost was rolled into an energy contract that the school district had with Johnson Controls. And this is a fairly unique way of doing it. The companies like Johnson Controls are hired to do energy audits and show over a period of time the school gone green or the district goes green and also reduce their costs. So Johnson Controls decided that CNG vehicles fell into the category so they just rolled it into their existing program.

So the parameters that we have for station design. The school district did want fast flow. School buses are a good candidate for time fill. They spend a lot of hours a day sat around but the value is reason they didn't want to do that.

As was mentioned earlier, they did want redundancy. Obviously nobody wants to be blamed for not being able to take the kids to school if there is some sort of issue with the equipment.

For design purposes we said we'd run the contract to the maximum of eight hours to deliver the gas they needed. And the local utility was able to give us 30 pounds gas pressure.

Also they wanted the CNG dispenser to tie into the existing diesel fuel management system. As with a lot of school districts, they will always retain a few diesel buses so that they can go on long runs in the summer out to camp and that sort of stuff. And CNG can be a limitation in that in certain parts of the country.

The sizing is best on using 135 standard cubic feet or the equivalent of one dge. And for the base design you can see the simple calculation there of 390 diesel gallons within eight hours. We calculate we needed 110 standard cubic feet per minute. And for the final expansion we needed 165 standard cubic feet per minute.

Based on that information and obviously wanting to try to use standard products instead of engineer a compressor just for this application, we opted to go with two 75 CFM compressors at 60 horsepower.

Their standard they use 30 pounds pressure so we did have to put a regulator in but that was going to still work out better than trying to custom design a compressor. We also built in the expansion capability to add a third compressor as and when needed.

The major components as you've seen earlier in the presentation we have an inlet gas dryer. We did size the dryer for the final flow so for three compressors. We have the two compressors with the motor start assembly and the motor start also included power distribution for the rest of the station.

We have the half inch construction, which is the smaller fleet size priority panel, which decides where the gas goes from the compressors; either to the vehicles or to the high bank, mid bank or low bank.

A standard three pack assembly, 35,000 standard cubic feet. That's about 240 gallons equivalent. And you get about 1/3 out of that. So typically 80 gallons plus is usable out of the storage. The cost of fuel.

There were also a few other criteria that we had to include. The compact footprint; obviously nobody wants to lose a lot of space. We want minimum noise impact. So we had to make sure that took into account the noise from the compressors.

We wanted the station to be easy to maintain. The tough one is it's less aesthetically pleasing. I'm not sure how that goes in a school district sub maintenance facility but we had to make them look pretty. And again, we had to use the existing fuel management system.

This project also had a couple of quirks. The main one being there was an ongoing contentious relationship between the school district and certain local residents. I never really found out what the problem was. But it did cause some headaches trying to get the station approved.

And I have to say none of the comments from these people had anything to do with worried about CNG being dangerous or being installed in the school district. There was some bad blood there from something a long time ago.

The other thing was that the station, the work had to begin on the day school finished. And we had to be up and running and pumping gas by the beginning of the school year.

Then the final one because grant funds were involved in the school district, we had to use prevailing wages, which always to me tends to complicate some of the administration and it does increase the cost.

The project timeline. May 2013 the RFP was issued and in July a team of Air and Gas Technologies and Oxford engineering were selected to do the design build. In August 2013 the initial drawings were produced. Those drawings were needed for some of the outreach that went on.

Between August and November we went to two public meetings, gave PowerPoint presentations, showed school buses from other school districts and basically gave information to the residents. And also in that timeframe we actually had to attend three planning board meetings.

Basically again, the reason we had to go to three was because the residents turned up at every one of them and created commotion. Again, nobody really objected to CNG. They just had something in the background.

Finally in November we got the approval and the permits. So the equipment was all there. Then the construction drawings will be done. And then at the end of the school year in June this year the first shovel was put in the ground and the station was up and running and pumping gas for the start of the school year. And the basic costs or the approximate cost for this project was around $800,000.

What I have now in the next few slides that I hope is interesting is a little representation of what it was like when the station went together. So the first two slides here show the area that was picked for the station. If I can get my pointer to work.

This area here is where the station is going to be. This area on this—we had to take into account there was drainage already in the area. So we had to upgrade the drainage.

This again is another shot where the equipment goes. In the background here this is the maintenance building. And a slide on the right, this is the existing fueling island for the diesel dispenser with the fuel management system.

When construction commenced you can see we have the wooden forms here for the concrete foundation. And one of the things that's important when you're looking at building a station is to try and keep as much as possible underground.

You can see here we have a bunch of conduits. Here are the conduits. This is tubing for the gas. This is tubing for the gas and over here for the electrical panel. So what usually tries to happen is to keep all of this stuff underground so it's not a tripping hazard when the station is built.

In the photograph on the right you can see as part of the sound attenuation and also the cosmetics. We are building a three-sided enclosure. This is a masonry construction. We're having a wall on that side, along the back and on this side. We leave the front here open for maintenance access.

See here on the left the fueling island. We just extended the existing fuel island. But again, all the conduit and all the tubing is put underground first before the forms go in.

So there's very little above ground that can be cosmetically bad and also a tripping hazard. And here on the right you can see as we started to put the building together. I think the too tall man is what we considered cosmetically pleasing.

This is a rear view of the compressor enclosure. This is actually the view that would be seen from the local football field. Here is where the natural gas supply comes in on the outside of the wall. And then this is the electrical control panel at the other end.

On the right we have a view of the panel. This control panel has the motor starters for both compressors. It has the power distribution for the dispenser, the dryer and all the rest of the components.

So very simple, very neat package. And again, you can see here all of the conduits. And for anyone building a station, you really need to find an electrician that has a level because this looks really nice here and you can have a perfectly working station. But if the conduit looks like spaghetti, people aren't going to be too happy with you.

Here we have a couple of shots of the station. On the left here we have the gas dryer, the two compressors. Here's the storage. And we just have a small view there of the priority panel. And you can see here in the concrete this is the conduit and tubing to add a third one of the compressors.

On the right we have an internal view from the compound. And as you can see, the conduit and the gas pipe is above grade. So again, we don't have a tripping hazard down here. You can walk through here to perform maintenance. All of the conduits come together and we have a trough. So again, keeps everything neat and tidy.

Another couple of views here. On this one on the left you get a better view of the priority panel. And as you can see, on the outside we've got guardrails as well as ballards. It's just a more detailed view.

And then the last couple of photos. This is the final building with a chain link fence on the front, access door through here. And then to the right on the fueling island, this is the new CNG dispenser, the existing diesel and the fuel management system there, which controls both of the dispensers.

What I was also asked to do was to show a couple of examples of larger stations. The one we're showing here is typical for a retail outlet. This station is delivering about 12 gge per minute. This is the minimum that most people in the retail business want to see. Ballpark cost for stations like this are in the one million to $1.5 million range.

The next station here is a large fleet un-public fueling station. The fleet fuels on the time fill here. And as you can see at the bottom, these are all Class 8 tractors. So they probably take about 40 or 50 gallons to fill. And then out here the fast fill is again. This type of station is probably in the 1.5 to $2 million range.

And then the final station, a transit station. These can go anywhere from two million up to five million, as Dennis said, right at the start. You can see here we have 12 storage vessels. We have five large compressors and the dryer.

The transit applications have a pretty unique way of taking on fuel. So there has to be a very high flow, 29 diesel gallons a minute. In this particular case they're electric drive. But some of the larger transit stations do also have engine drive.

And that's it for my presentation. I'll turn it back to Margaret I believe.

DENNIS SMITH: Actually this is Dennis. I think I'll take it up again.

GRAHAM BARKER: Oh, okay. Sorry.

DENNIS SMITH: So thanks Graham and Jeremy and John; well all the presenters. This is great information. I guess if you've got questions, let's have the operator tell you how to submit questions. But then while they get in the queue I've got a few remarks.

COORDINATOR: If you would like to ask a question on the phone line, press star 1. Please be sure to record you first and last name clearly at the prompt so that I may introduce your question. Again star 1. Make sure your line is un-muted and record your first and last name at the prompt, as your name is required to introduce your question.

DENNIS SMITH: Okay. Thank you. So while we're waiting for those, I've got a few remarks here. I mean as the speakers mentioned, a lot of things can really impact the cost.

And it's not only just the sizing but in many cases who you're working with, how well you're coordinating with the community and the authorities having jurisdiction, the local fire marshal and that sort of thing can dramatically either affect the direct cost or affect the amount of time it takes to get things done. So we really need to repeat the ideas that you need to work with all of those key people or engage them early and often.

And when it gets to be the fun time to have your grand opening, be sure you're inviting the people from the closes fire station that might have to respond to be part of that grand opening so they can be your partners and really help with that process. Those kinds of people can be a huge help or a huge impediment if you don't work with them properly. So that's a key part of it.

Another thing that I think is good advice that we've found is, and a few of the speakers touched on this, is do your homework as far as who you're teaming up with and who you're picking to do this work. This is certainly a perfect example of low bid is not best here.

You need to make sure that the people you're teaming up with have good experience, that they're not learning on your job. You don't just pick somebody because they've got the fanciest brochure or the nicest looking website here.

Talk to other people who have had experience doing similar sized Web, excuse me, size CNG stations. And this is where the Clean Cities coalitions can help get you introduced to maybe some people in another city or another fleet who has a station that's very close to what you're interested in.

It's a good investment to go on a few field trips and look at these things in other places, talk to them about their experiences and who they worked with and that sort of thing.

And then finally one of my key points is whenever possible hire a good third party expert that can be you advisor, that can help you with the initial decisions and sizing and so forth upfront but then also help you with the performance testing to make sure that the station is really doing what it was supposed to do and you're getting what you're paying for down the line on those things.

So that's some initial comments overall. But let's check now and see what we've got in the queue as far as our questions, either the written ones or on the line.

COORDINATOR: There are no questions in the queue at this time.

DENNIS SMITH: Okay.

MARGARET: We do have a few questions online.

DENNIS SMITH: Okay.

MARGARET: The first one is can you provide this to LA Clean Cities? I'm not sure if that's Los Angeles or Louisiana. But the report is available online and the recorded webinar and the slides will also be posted on the Clean Cities website. So this whole presentation will be available for all Clean Cities coordinators and stakeholders to view at a later time.

And another question is what sort of systems are available for security re an unmonitored time fuel or overnight system? Would one of the presenters like to take that?

GRAHAM BARKER: Well the security it really depends what type of security they're talking about. But overnight time fills do tend to be within a compound within someone's yard. So they are protected. I guess if somebody wants to climb over a fence, they can do that and they can do some damage.

But in all of my years of doing stations, I haven't seen anything in the way of vandalism. A lot of places now like the school district that I mentioned they do have cameras automatically in there. So what happened there was we just added a camera that covered the fuel station.

MARGARET: Thank you Graham. We have another question typed in our mind. Is there a standard fast fill protocol or does each station manufacturer have their own approach? Is there a CNG quality standard for fueling vehicles?

GRAHAM BARKER: I can take that again. Yes. There is a quality standard that's SAE J1616, which limits the amount of oil and the amount of water in the gas. And I believe it has a minimum bpu content.

As far as fast filling protocol, I think every station operates basically the same way on a fast fill; the compressor into storage to the dispenser. Where the changes are taking place at the moment is on the higher volume stations.

When CNG first started to become popular we were fueling vans and pickups at six gallons, eight gallons a fill. We're now fueling refuse trucks and Class8 trucks at 30 to 90 gallons a fill. So the size of the components is getting bigger and there's a lot more thought going into how you get the gas from A to B to C with limited pressure drops and limited flow drops.

MARGARET: Thank you Graham. We have a simple—but Alan Gaus has his hand raised. Alan, if you'd like to ask a question, just go ahead and press star 1 and record your name and you'll be added to that queue. But that's all from online typed in questions.

DENNIS SMITH: Okay. So while we're maybe waiting for him to clue in or queue in there via the—a couple of things came to mind. I mean Graham mentioned how one of the locations wanted it to be nice looking. I believe that was the quote.

You know, certainly those are things has nothing to do with the fuel or has nothing to do with propane versus natural gas versus any other alternative fuel.

But, you know, if you're in a situation where they want a lot of beautiful landscaping and other things like that, that can easily run the price up. And sometimes when you hear these stories about hugely expensive station that somebody put in, you—it really serves you well to do the homework.

And if you can get in touch with your local Clean Cities coalition who is local to that area, then they can help you figure out what in many cases some of the reasons were.

You know, sometimes even the local geography has some things to do with it. Whether there's a lot of rocks that they hit during the excavation or if they're in California in some areas where the platforms have to be earthquake resistant and built a lot more sturdier, those—that can rise the cost up.

And again, that's not anything unique to CNG. All refueling stations and equipment is probably going to cost more to install in those particular situations.

However, you know, that can make the numbers look dramatically different in one part of the country versus another. And so you really need to ask the questions of when you're trying to do the comparisons.

Let's see. Did we get the question queued up there Margaret?

MARGARET: I think the operator would need to tell us if there's anybody on the line.

COORDINATOR: I'm showing no question in queue. However, to queue up a question, please press star 1. Participant, your line is now open.

MAN: Yes. My question is let's say there is a compressed natural gas station is open in an area. Are there federal safety regulations for CNG stations and also for maintenance of these vehicles? Are there special programs that are available for mechanics to conduct—to conduct mechanical work on compressed natural gas vehicles?

DENNIS SMITH: John, you want to tackle the thing about like the maintenance technician training and so forth and I'll follow up with some things about the other regulations?

JOHN GONZALES: Well I think almost Graham might be able to answer that better because I would suspect in the case for maintenance training for stations you would work through the original equipment manufacturer on that.

So the person that probably did the initial compressor package would be the best person. Graham, how do you guys go about training for technicians to do general maintenance on stations when you install them?

GRAHAM BARKER: We have a couple of different levels of training program. At the factory we have a basic and an advanced. That is really for people who are going to put wrenches on the equipment.

Also during startup, we do—I'll call it probably more than orientation rather than a training. But at a lot of facilities they will have mechanics, technicians. We show them what to look for, you know, on the daily or weekly basis checking for leaks, checking for smells, that sort of stuff.

But primarily we do the training and then if it's a particularly large customer who's got numerous, our training person can actually go out and do onsite training. But they are formal courses here with manuals and backup and everything else to go with it. So that's what we do for the stations.

DENNIS SMITH: Well I think you and Jeremy Talbot mentioned earlier about on the vehicle side of thing. Certainly there's a certification available through ASC on what a service excellence group as far as some guidance there on standardization.

There was—the question about a federal standard. There really isn't a standardized or federally required training regarding operating of this equipment. However, there are a lot of what we call best practices that we've tried to get together over the years and make available to you.

Plus also our Department of Energy in recent years has provided quite a bit of funding to develop some training programs that are available for first responders and safety operators—safe officials and people who would be working in and around these stations to do the appropriate planning and to know when they would respond to an incident.

You know, what's different about these fuels and how to deal with this equipment and the fuel itself as compared to if there is—we're responding to a situation with gasoline or diesel.

So all of those programs and information about that is available at the Clean Cities website and the Alternative Fuels Data Center website. Try to encourage you to either look there or work with your local Clean Cities coalition and they can put you in touch with that kind of information.

In many cases the curriculums in those classes are being taught throughout the country at the participating local community colleges that are part of that national alternative fuel training consortium. And we've worked to help develop a lot of the curriculum associated with that.

And it's not just how you take care of the station but it's everything, you know, that touches or potentially touches the vehicles while they're at the station as well as if they might be involved in an incident. And even some of the latest training has to do with tow truck operators and people who might be dealing with the salvage and the disposal of the vehicles and this equipment at the end of its useful life.

So that's available and those resources I think a good way for you to find out about that is to work with you local Clean Cities coalition. And they can put you in touch with all of that if you're not finding it on the websites easily.

JEREMY TALBOT: Actually I would like to add to that too. On a federal lever there actually is a standard and a—the vehicle application for the cylinders. The cylinders actually have to be inspected every three years or 36,000 miles. And a lot of the cylinders they also have an expiration on them as well.

So different types of cylinders are going to have different life expectancies, if you will, or useful lifecycles. For instance, a Type 4, which is a 100% composite tank and usually the one capable of carrying the most capacity those are going to be usually around 20 years with a useful life outside of that.

Once it reaches its expiration, the tank has to come out of the vehicle and it has to be condemned to conform with code. CSA is actually the governing body for the standards in which we inspect everything, you know, as far as the quality goes.

But again, required by NFPA 52, which is our National Fire Protection Agency it's a—it is a requirement for them to be inspected. In some states even like Oklahoma, I believe off the top of my head, will not allow you to refuel your vehicle unless your CSA inspection is actually current and up to date.

DENNIS SMITH: Yes. That's absolutely right Jeremy. So thanks for adding to that. With the fuel tanks in particular there are specific regulations and guidelines that have to be followed closely on that.

MARGARET: We do have additional questions typed in online. Are there any fuel quality enforcement agencies for natural gas stations as we have for gasoline stations?

DENNIS SMITH: Graham, you want that one or you want me to take it?

GRAHAM BARKER: Well I can take it.

DENNIS SMITH: Okay.

GRAHAM BARKER: Most states you have to—if you're going from retail fueling, you have to have the dispenser weights and measures certified just like you have with a gasoline or a diesel. That's really the only thing that the National Weights and Measures Council—they do have protocols as to how that's done.

And I live in Connecticut and my state does it. Some states haven't really picked up on it yet because CNG is still a very small part of their purview. But that's the only one that I can think of.

MARK SMITH: Yes. It's Mark Smith. I don't know if the question had to do with fuel quality. I thought maybe I'd—what I picked up. And so there is an SAE standard for natural gas as a transportation fuel. It's SAE J1616. And that spells out the—what that composition of that gas has to be in terms of methane content and allowable hydrocarbons and all those types of things.

So there is a code that—or standard that exists from SAE about fuel quality for natural gas as a transportation fuel.

MARGARET: And who…

GRAHAM BARKER: I think the second part of that it's an honor system too because there isn't a police force who is checking that right now to my knowledge. It's not—at least not in my area.

DENNIS SMITH: The jurisdiction does vary state by state in some cases. Like Graham was saying, there's a way to measure his division. In some states I know like a Department of Agriculture has that authority and it just varies. So but it would typically be the same entity that's doing the measuring and the enforcing for gasoline and diesel that would be doing it for thee fuels as well.

MARGARET: The next typed in question is are there any federal funding initiatives or grants to support construction at CNG fueling stations in order to encourage fleet conversion?

DENNIS SMITH: Well, we've funded a lot of those over the years. Department of Energy doesn't currently have an open one. But the best way for you to go find out about not only federal but state and other funding opportunities is again at our Alternative Fuels Data Center website, AFDC.

And there's a button on there that gets worn out quite a bit that is on legislative and funding opportunities and things like that. You can actually sort it state by state to see what you're eligible for in you particular area.

And sometimes there's grants or funding opportunities, sometimes there's tax breaks or incentives or in some cases there's non-financial incentives such as the ability to drive in HOV lanes and things like that if you're an alternative fuel vehicle.

So that's a good clearinghouse to find all that kind of information. And again, I don't want to sound like a broken record but your local Clean Cities coalition is probably the best local go to source for that because they have their finger on the pulse of whenever there are funding opportunities in your particular area and they can help you not only find that out but find out who you can partner with on projects like that.

MARGARET: Another question that is who is the CSA acronym referring to. I'm wondering if that is intended to be SAE.

JEREMY TALBOT: It's actually CSA and I'll handle this one. CSA is actually Canadian Standards Association. Now it's—the U.S. doesn't really have a USA standard established. So right now we currently go by the one that's established by the Canadians. But it is applicable for the U.S. market.

DENNIS SMITH: Yes. It's pretty much a North American thing. But—all right. Jeremy, you're in the South so maybe you thought that that had something to do with the Confederate States of America or something, but. I'm not sure where that question came from.

JEREMY TALBOT: Well, the…

DENNIS SMITH: But it does sound like that. But he's right and in fact CSA where they're located right now is in Cleveland, Ohio and what used to be the American Gas Association Laboratory's headquarters. So they've actually—even though they go by that name it's sort of a combination of groups that have worked in this area for years. They're not new by any means. They've been following this for a long time.

MARGARET: Another question is what do you see as the forecast for CNG stations in the USA? Historically it's been less than 100 stations per year. What is your view on the outlook?

DENNIS SMITH: Yes. I don't know who wants to take a stab at that one. I don't know what our crystal ball is there other than, you know, they're being—timing has never been as good as it is right now as far as the motivation for people to look at natural gas I think even though there's 30 years or more of experience of actually installing these and working with natural gas vehicles here in North America.

Some things that have been real game changes lately are the wide abundance of natural gas and new resources. Certainly the cost savings. It's not unusual for us to hear of these projects where they're saving $2 a gallon or more compared to what they were paying for gasoline or diesel.

And then also now more than ever is a heightened awareness and interest in the climate change situation where people are looking at those benefits as well, so.

And then finally obviously the technology for both the vehicles and their fueling stations is better and more advanced and more reliable than ever in history before. So I think all of that's going for it and so—and I'm not sure that I've got a number for you but I think we see it increasing at a rate than we have ever had in the past. It's never been this convergence of all of these benefits and incentives at the same time.

Anybody else want to take a stab at that?

GRAHAM BARKER: Yes. I mean we—way often at ANGI get asked that question. And we tend to look at the engine manufacturers and the vehicle manufacturers to see how their sales are going. And I think with the Cummins engines they're seeing a 20 or 30% increase in the last year. So those are the trends.

And I think the other thing that you keep your eye on and you hate to say it is with all the craziness going in the Middle East, I think that's going to have an affect if that escalates again.

DENNIS SMITH: Well and certainly you're right about the engine manufacturers and the vehicle manufacturers. I mean that's just probably also an unprecedented time as far as the number of OEM companies that are—most all the majors have either LNG or CNG products available either directly through factory programs or through factory outfitters like QVM type programs and all.

So the products are available across the board where they haven't been in the past as well. So you're right. That all contributes to the trend.

MARGARET: We do have another online question but I wanted to check and see if there's anybody waiting on the phone first.

COORDINATOR: We do have a question from the phone line. Judd, your line is now open.

JUDD: Yes. Thank you for taking my message or my call. I'm in the—interested in the home fuel market. And I'm wondering—I heard FuelMaker but do you have other leads on perhaps faster or a little bit more reliable home fuel stations?

JEREMY TALBOT: As far as the home refueling units go, you know, one of the things that actually gives them the ability to be installed in a home environment, if you will, is it's going to be to code NFPA 52.

The appliance rating that the unit has and one of the things that the code states is that it cannot flow over a specific amount. So to answer your question, by law we can't put anything faster than those units into a home environment. Anything above that is going to be a commercial application.

JUDD: Thank you.

JEREMY TALBOT: Sure.

MARGARET: Are there any more questions on the phone?

COORDINATOR: I'm showing no questions from the phone line.

MARGARET: Okay. I'll read another one that was typed in. During CNG site construction when a conflict occurs between NFPA 52 and IFC such as distance from railways, SRV discharge piping, which code is enforced?

GRAHAM BARKER: I guess I'll take that. That comes back…

DENNIS SMITH: Yes. Go ahead.

GRAHAM BARKER: …that comes back to the authority having jurisdiction. Usually it is up to the fire marshal. He picks which one he wants to use. And we currently have a little bit of that with going to public fueling stations because the CNG we've used NFPA 52 as our bible for years. And on the liquid fuel side, that is NFPA 38.

And now we're starting to see CNG going into gasoline, diesel facilities. There are a couple of gray areas there. So what is actually happening now—in fact the rest of this week the Petroleum Equipment Institute has been put together a task force and they're coming out with recommended practices to be able to help people make that decision. But unfortunately it is at the local level authority decision.

I would say that usually if they're going to do that they'll go on the conservative side and whichever is the most restrictive they will probably apply that one.

DENNIS SMITH: And that's a good point. That's another reason to work with your code and safety officials and authorities having jurisdiction early on to engage them so that they'll have a cooperative and collaborative working relationship with you. Because if they're pulled in at the last minute and they don't—really are not familiar with these technologies, like Graham says, they'll always err on the side of being more conservative.

And many times—sometimes that means more than it needs to be. And so if you've worked with them ahead of time, you've got that level of trust and then even if they're not completely sure then you can work with them to bring in neighboring authorities who have done this before that they would like to talk to and see how they handled it.

So the communication and the pre-education is really key when it comes down to these kinds of conflicts that have to be resolved because the local authority really does have the final say but you want him to make a decision as smartly and is based on the best information that he has or she.

MARGARET: There are no more questions online.

DENNIS SMITH: Okay. Well I don't know if there's some final remarks from any of the speakers before we sign off here. I certainly thank all of them for their information.

Margaret, just correct me if I'm wrong. Let's see. The publication we mentioned and gave the link to that's available right now on the AFDC. Is that right as far as the CNG infrastructure costs?

MARGARET: Yes. It is currently available online.

DENNIS SMITH: Okay. And that's—you can download it as a PDF. And many of the photos that you saw today and the numbers in the charts came from that. And when will we probably have the presentation from today posted that people will be able to download?

MARGARET: Sandra might be able to answer that better but typically within a week.

DENNIS SMITH: Okay.

WOMAN: Yes. The next week or two we should have that posted up.

DENNIS SMITH: Okay. Thank you. And I'll—like I mentioned earlier, this is recorded. So if you've got others—I think there was a question about could we get this in front of either Louisiana or Los Angeles, one. But it'll be available that way as well.

So I think if there's no further remarks from any of our speakers, Jeremy or Graham, did you have anything else that came to mind?

GRAHAM BARKER: No. I think I've spoken enough thank you.

JEREMY TALBOT: And I'm good myself.

DENNIS SMITH: Thank you. And John Gonzales from NREL, thank you. Did you have any final remarks or…

JOHN GONZALES: No further comments. Thanks Dennis.

DENNIS SMITH: Okay. So thanks to everybody for contributing and then for the people who listened. I think we had close to 150 people at one point here on with us. So a good participation today.

This concludes our presentation and our webinar for today. Thank you, everybody.

COORDINATOR: That concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may disconnect at this time.