Sept. 22, 2015

Kern County Schools Expands CNG Station for Bus Fleet and Public Use (Text Version)

This is a text version of the video segment Kern County Schools Expands CNG Station for Bus Fleet and Public Use, which aired on Sept. 22, 2015.

SCOTT FIEBER: Our office thinks a lot about alternative fuel, and so if it's doable, we'll try to do it.

Well, basically, we're replacing our current 760 CFM refuel skid that was installed in 2005 with two ANGI compressors. The beauty of the ANGIs is one of the small, white ANGI boxes is 900 CFM, and so our total at this build-out will be 1,800 CFM. We're going to be almost well over double in capacity on this add-on, plus we're adding two more banks in the CMAC phase of the project, two more banks of storage, and a Matrix valve panel. With the final build-out of the CMAC phase, we'll be at 62 time-fill hoses, and we have 60 CNG buses. Whenever we see a new customer or a long-time customer, we'll walk out and talk to them and find out, "How was your experience? Is there anything we can do to make it better?" Number one, they want a canopy, you know, standing in the rain or standing in the heat; number two, they want a fast fill, and so we work with our design team and spec'd equipment that's going to give them the fastest fill that we can possibly do.

It turns out, I guess, we're the only 24/7 fully accessible, any-credit-card-will-work, CNG fueling facility and we're right on 58. We figure with the savings in electricity and the savings in labor, plus the grants we've got, the new facility will pay for itself in a fairly quick period of time, so we're definitely strongly behind CNG in the electric vehicles, and we plan to have more.

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