Working Group on Dual Fuel

What is dual fuel?

Dual fuel technology means the simultaneous combustion of two fuels. In this NGVA working group we put focus on diesel and natural gas (also biomethane).

In dual fuel engines the diesel engine remains unchanged. Via software the use of NG is controlled. Additional hardware for the storage and injection of NG as well as for sensoring of engine parameters is required. This add-on scheme allows retrofit of existing diesel engines and conventional diesel-only operation when required. For the driver it is an advantage that the torque of a dual fuel engine is comparable to a diesel engine and much better than of a pure gas engine.

Why dual duel?

The diesel engine is currently the most efficient internal combustion engine technology. So why not combining the most efficient engine type with one of the cleanest fuels available - natural gas?
The benefits are clear:

• Natural Gas (NG) is cheaper than diesel and thus may reduce fuel costs, depending on national diesel/NG pricing and fuel taxation policy, significantly.
• Dual fuel technology also reduces CO2, CO and particulate matter emissions.

The purpose of this working group is to identify stakeholders and customer needs in order to analyse the market potentials of dual fuel technology (in terms of system performance requirements, volumes of market segments etc.). As a conclusion, cross national cooperation helps to lead to increasing sales of dual fuel engines. It also tries to identify any required technical work regarding ISO standards and UNE ECE regulations concerning vehicles using dual fuel engine technology, also the inclusion of the dual fuel option in EU Regulations concerning engine and vehicle certification and European Whole Vehicle Type Approvals.

Jürgen Brachetti
Working Group Coordinator 

NGVA Europe... for sustainable mobility