Support for clean trucks

​​German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) will support energy-efficient and low CO2 trucks which might also be a benefiary for film trucks and Outdoor Broadcasting vans. The Ministry has made a significant commitment to supporting this energy transition, and has set aside 10 million Euros in 2018 alone to fund the program, which will run until at least 2020. The funding guidelines focus on heavy freight transport with trucks above 7.5 tonnes powered by Natural Gas, as well as specific electric drives. The subsidy amounts to 8,000 Euros for CNG and 12,000 Euros for LNG, with a ceiling of 500,000 Euros per company. This maximum amount of the funding will allow the development of the refuelling infrastructure, as it means subsidizing a company’s purchase of 40 to 60 Natural Gas vehicles – the perfect sized fleet to ensure a quick payback on the investment on a refuelling station.

 

In the Netherlands, DutchView already implemted the idea of a green OB van in 2014.  The broadcast company chose a diesel engine that runs with liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) because a fully electric or hybrid car was not an option for a 25 tons truck. In Germany, the first environmental-friendly CNG film truck has been used for the production of Constantin film Sauerkrautkoma in 2017. Thanks to the use of a 7.2 tons IVECO Daily for the transportation of lights and camera equipment, soot and nitrous gases could mostly be avoided. If the compressed narural gas (CNG) is generated by renewables as for example power to gas, the carbon emissions are also very low. Another benefit is that CNC-driven trucks are almost noiseless and even cheaper than diesel.

 

Due to the subsidized bio fuel from South America the prices for bio fuel went extremely down. But when it comes to bio fuel, it is always an ethical question if wheat, rye, corn and colza should be used as gas at all. Therefore some bio fuel producers are constructing plants which are using the agricultural byproduct straw for the production of bio methane.

 

Photo: © Dutch View

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *