Municipalities Adopt Cleaner Solutions Inking Agreements with Clean Energy

June 26, 2024

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(Clean Energy Fuels) Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (NASDAQ: CLNE), the largest provider of the cleanest fuel for the transportation market, announced a series of new deals with several municipalities across the country. These agreements represent a collective growing demand within city agencies for more sustainable, low-carbon solutions for their operations.

“What we are now observing is that municipalities which are eager to meet their environmental and fiscal goals can do this with renewable natural gas (RNG) easily, immediately and cost-effectively. Many cities are now making clean fuel a requirement for their transportation needs because of local, state and federal requirements to reduce emissions. RNG is the best solution to meet those needs,” said Chad Lindholm, senior vice president at Clean Energy.

In a competitive bid, Clean Energy won the contract against other fuel providers to become the sole RNG provider for the City of Fort Collins, Colo. transit and fleet vehicles. RNG is a sustainable transportation fuel made from organic waste which drastically reduces carbon emissions by an average of 300% versus diesel. The deal will cover RNG supply for three fueling stations owned and operated by the city. 500,000 gallons of clean-burning RNG will power 52 transit buses and other service vehicles annually.

“Here in Fort Collins, we are committed to renewable fuels and cleaning up our emissions to help reduce transport-related pollution throughout the city. We are firm believers in sustainability and our desire was to have the greatest percentage of RNG available for our CNG fleet. We are pleased to partner with Clean Energy to fuel our growing fleet and lower the city’s carbon footprint,” said Tracy Ochsner, Director Operation Services at the City of Fort Collins.

The City of Beverly Hills, Calif. has signed a new deal to power its waste vehicles with RNG. The deal is contracted to provide 119,000 gallons of RNG to the city’s 17 solid waste fleet vehicles annually. Clean Energy will also provide monthly maintenance services for their fueling station.

In a competitive bid, Clean Energy won the contract to design and build a private station for the City of Arcadia, Calif. The site is designed to deliver 200,000 gallons of ultra-low carbon fuel annually and will fuel 28 transit buses and utility trucks operating in the city.

Clean Energy was awarded a contract with Long Beach Transit to oversee operations and maintenance of its private fueling station. The deal will provide an expected 1.4 million gallons of fuel annually, supplying 125 transit buses operating in the city of Long Beach, Calif.

The Garden City Transit Authority in New York has signed an operations and maintenance agreement with Clean Energy for its transit fleet. The deal is expected to use an anticipated 3.3 million gallons of fuel for 237 transit buses.

The City of Bakersfield, Calif., has signed an agreement with Clean Energy to provide services, parts and materials for the city’s two fueling stations. Clean Energy will also fuel the city’s 79 waste collection vehicles with an anticipated 750,000 gallons of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Suburban Disposal in New York has inked a maintenance agreement with Clean Energy for a station that provides 549,000 gallons of fuel to power its fleet of 61 waste collection trucks.

City of Scottsdale, Ariz. has signed an agreement with Clean Energy to maintain its station. The station is anticipated to provide 455,000 gallons of fuel for approximately 103 vehicles which comprise of fleet vehicles, waste collection trucks and forklifts.

Orange County Public Works in Calif. has signed a contract with Clean Energy to provide station services as well as fuel. The station will dispense an estimated 300,000 gallons of fuel annually which will power refuse trucks, street sweepers, sewer cleaners and other third-party refuse vehicles.

The City of Tacoma, Wash. has signed an operations and maintenance agreement with Clean Energy for a station that is expected to dispense 450,000 gallons of fuel annually to operate 50 of its refuse trucks.

Waste Resources in Gardena, Calif. has signed a repairs and maintenance deal with Clean Energy to provide 448,000 gallons of fuel to 64 of its waste collection vehicles.

The Port of Seattle has inked a deal with Clean Energy for its airport transport fleet. Clean Energy will provide approximately 400,000 gallons of clean fuel for 45 of its airport shuttle buses.

Clean Energy has extended its relationship with Atlantic County Utilities Authority in New Jersey to operate and maintain a station that will provide approximately 481,000 gallons of fuel for the city’s 100 waste collection trucks.

Clean Energy has inked a deal with the District of Columbia Public Works to provide fuel and maintenance for 20 government vehicles and waste collection trucks in the city. The contract is expected to provide 15,000 gallons of fuel to DC Public Works annually.

Fort Smith Transit Authority in Arkansas has signed a contract with Clean Energy to provide maintenance services as well as fuel. The deal highlights the City of Fort Smith’s commitment to expanding its CNG fleet to decrease their emission and reach their sustainability goals. The agreement is for an estimated 200,160 gallons to power 16 transit vehicles.

About Clean Energy

Clean Energy Fuels Corp. is the country’s largest provider of the cleanest fuel for the transportation market. Our mission is to decarbonize transportation through the development and delivery of renewable natural gas (RNG), a sustainable fuel derived by capturing methane from organic waste. Clean Energy allows thousands of vehicles, from airport shuttles to city buses to waste and heavy-duty trucks, to reduce their amount of climate-harming greenhouse gas. We operate a vast network of fueling stations across the U.S. and Canada as well as RNG production facilities at dairy farms. Visit www.cleanenergyfuels.com and follow @ce_renewables on X and LinkedIn. READ MORE

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Excerpt from Biomass Magazine: Replacing diesel with RNG sourced from a landfill has a carbon intensity (CI) score of 45.9, according to data from the California Air Resources Board’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard pathway. The carbon reduction benefits are even more drastic when using manure-based RNG, dropping down to negative 330 CI points on average.

A Brief History
At the start, Clean Energy was primarily a distributor of fossil-based natural gas. As stated on the company’s website, T. Boone Pickens, one of the company’s cofounders, was a champion of natural gas as a cleaner alternative for heavy-duty trucks that burn substantial amounts of gasoline and diesel. “Boone was involved in natural gas, and he always thought that a higher value for natural gas was to vehicles, rather than going into electric power generation,” Corbus explains. “His whole idea was, ‘Let’s take the natural gas, it’s really clean relative to diesel, it’s cheap on a commodity basis, it’s much cheaper than diesel or gasoline, and it’s all-American—you don’t have to import it.’”

In his former job as an investment banker, Corbus played a role in bringing the company public in 2007. Recognizing the available opportunities, he joined the Clean Energy team shortly after. He explains that RNG started to become a focus in 2008, when exploring the fuel was included in the company’s strategic plan. Several things happened after 2008 that further increased Clean Energy’s interest. In 2011, California’s LCFS was put into place, followed by the Renewable Fuel Standard’s renewable identification number (RIN) program amendments in 2014 that allowed landfill gas and other RNG to generate a D3 RIN. “Those two factors are what really started to accelerate the transition from what we call blue gas or fossil natural gas, to renewable natural gas,” Corbus says.

Clean Energy first entered the RNG production space through the purchase of a project at one of the country’s largest landfills, the McCommas Bluff Landfill, near Dallas. Corbus explains that it is common for landfills to burn the methane collected from the landfill to generate electricity, then sell it to the grid. However, because the McCommas Bluff Landfill was so big, it made more sense to clean the gas and put it in a pipeline to be sent to a cogeneration facility. “It costs a lot of money to put that cleanup equipment in, but once you have it [installed], you can upgrade the gas to a higher quality, making the process more efficient and making more money off of it,” Corbus says. But rather than sending it to a local cogeneration facility, Clean Energy successfully navigated the process of transporting the RNG across state lines to California, which was appealing because of the renewable energy requirements in place there. Prior to the maturation of the LCFS credits market, the California utilities were the primary buyer, with any extra RNG being sold into the vehicle market. “The LCFS credit market matured over time, and then when the RIN market developed, we [put] all that gas directly into the vehicle fuel market,” Corbus says. “Because you could just get a lot more money for the gas taking it to the vehicle fuel market with those credits than you could in ... the voluntary market, taking it to utilities.”

Market Dynamics
Clean Energy utilizes offtake agreements to supply RNG demand at its stations and make money doing so. Corbus outlines an example of how these offtake agreements work. “Say there’s a landfill in Tennessee, and it can sell its renewable natural gas to the local utility for $20 per thousand cubic feet. If you put it into a vehicle in California you can get double that, $40. But how do they get it into a vehicle in California? That’s where we show up,” he says. READ MORE