Mayor D.C. Reeves announced at his weekly presser this morning that the city’s compressed natural gas vehicles have now switched to renewable natural gas, contributing to the city’s overall Renewable Energy Goal.
- The change was made possible through an agreement signed by Pensacola Energy to purchase renewable natural gas, or RNG, for use in the city’s vehicles that previously used compressed natural gas (CNG). The City of Pensacola has 87 CNG vehicles in its fleet, including garbage trucks, recycling trucks, and Pensacola Energy crew service vehicles.
RNG is produced from natural decomposition of organic materials in landfills where the methane is captured and converted to pipeline quality RNG, displacing the use of fossil-based natural gas. The gas is being pulled from landfills by BP.
Why this matters: For 2023, this project moves the City of Pensacola 7.62% closer to its 30% renewable energy by 2030 goal. Next year, this project will represent 15.25% renewable energy usage for the City of Pensacola. Combined with 6.2% received from Florida Power and Light, this advances the city to an estimated 21.45% renewable energy by 2024 – a milestone of two-thirds of the way to the city’s 30% renewable energy goal with six years left to achieve it.
Dig Deeper: Pensacola Energy director Darryl Singleton said, “Starting on June 1, we were able to secure renewable natural gas for our compressed natural gas vehicles. Therefore, in the month of June, the city was, all of their compressed natural gas vehicles were running solely off of RNG.”
- He added, “We’re kind of killing two birds with one stone. We’re not wasting methane from a landfill, and we’re not producing any toxins out of the tail pipe.”