NG/biomethane as a vehicle fuel

The fuel burnt in an NG engine mainly consists of methane. The gas is either fossil ‘natural gas’ or ‘biomethane’ produced from renewable resources. Coherent the following distinctions for methane have to be made:


Methane

Natural Gas

• H-gas with high energy content
• L-gas with low energy content

Biomethane

• Upgraded landfill gas
• Upgraded biogas from AD fermentation of organic waste, grass, algae, sea-weeds, and crops from set-aside land
• Upgraded biogas from AD fermentation of crops
• Thermochemically produced biomethane based on gasification of forest industry waste

The European Emission Regulation (EC) No 692/2008 issued on July 18, 2008, consequently uses the term NG/biomethane when describing the fuel used in NGVs, and NGVA Europe follows the same principle.

The commercially used names differ from country to country, from language to language – Erdgas, Aardgas, Naturgas, Gas natural, Metano, Fordonsgas, Biogaz, BioErdgas, Bio-Natural Gas, Kompogas etc. NGVA Europe uses the same language as in the certification rules to avoid any misunderstandings.

Note:
When NGVA Europe uses the terms CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) or LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas), this always also includes CBG (Compressed Biogas) and LBG (Liquefied Biogas) automatically. But to simplify matters, NGVA Europe mostly makes reference to the commonly used terms CNG and LNG only.  

When looking at NG/biomethane as a vehicle fuel, it is interesting to take a closer look at the following points:

• Biomethane feedstock and production technologies
• LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) technologies
• Comparison of energy contents and CO2 emissions from different fuels
• Benefits connected with the use of NG/biomethane