Natural & bio Gas Vehicle Association Europe

NGVA Europe keeps you informed!

12/12/2011 - GNVert joins NGVA Europe board of directors, which celebrates its past meeting in connection with the first NGV conference in Irelandmore
05/12/2011 - Eurogas Roadmap 2050: Natural Gas Vehicles should reach a market share of 13% and 33% respectively for passenger and freight transportmore
28/11/2011 - TEN-T Guidelines include alternative fuels: 31.7 billion euros allocated to transport under the Connecting Europe Facilitymore
23/11/2011 - EU Commission Task Force concludes that CNG and LNG should be more heavily promoted in transportmore
01/10/2011 - NGVA Europe welcomes MEP report on White Paper calling for 20% CO2 reduction in road transport by 2020more
01/10/2011 - FRANKFURT MOTOR SHOW: 5 new NGV series models. European Commission visit to Erdgas Mobil standmore
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France

france

France is the fourth ranking country in Western Europe by number of NGVs, with a total of more than 12,000 units.

The development of NGVs in France has been pushed in different ways by the signing of official agreements between industry and the government. The first agreement signed in 1994 planned to have 350 CNG buses in service by the end of 1999. The second agreement signed in 1999 achieved significant success in terms of having put the following vehicles into operation: 1,600 urban buses, 300 trucks, mainly for urban cleaning services and 5,500 cars and light-duty vans. All fleet owners refuelled their vehicles using privately installed refilling stations.

The newest protocol signed in July 2005 defined very ambitious targets, in terms of number of vehicles running on NG/biomethane, to be reached by 2010:

  • 3,000 CNG urban buses
  • 1,200 CNG urban services trucks
  • 100,000 CNG cars and light duty vans

In order to reach these targets and particularly the one related to private cars, the protocol was to install 300 public filling stations, instead of the private refuelling stations used by public customers.
From an administrative viewpoint, the ministry for transport was offering ad-hoc help in terms of defining a tax scheme that would push the development of NGVs in France. Their point of view was that this measure was “strictly going in line with the law regarding the quality of the air and the rationale use of energy”. By the end of 2008 France counted a total number in excess of 12,450 NGVs: 9,500 cars and light duty vans, 2,100 urban buses and 850 urban service trucks. There are about 125 CNG filling stations at present, 15 of which are public, whereas the other 110 are privately used for fleets. However, due to further efforts, especially made by the French gas industry, it is expected that the filling stations network will be expanded in the near future.
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