Featured Image: Shaun Hart, VP at UGIES and Owen O’Neil, Executive Director of LANTA at the ceremonial ‘first fill’ of a LANTA Bus using Renewable Natural Gas sourced from Pennsylvania landfill. LANTA is the first transit agency in Pennsylvania to utilize this renewable energy in its fleet.

Allentown, PA (Special) — Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority (LANTA) and UGI Energy Services, Inc. LLC (UGIES) announced a ‘first-in-Pennsylvania’ partnership to use Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) to power the eighty-plus buses in LANTA’s fleet.

At a press conference in Allentown today (Tuesday, February 20) the companies performed a ceremonial First-Fill at LANTA’s Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) fueling station. The agreement between LANTA and UGIES calls for the Authority to purchase Pennsylvania-sourced clean biogas fed into the system from area landfills.

RNG is biogas, the gaseous product of the decomposition of organic matter that has been processed to purity standards. Like conventional natural gas, RNG can be used as a transportation fuel in the form of the CNG that powers LANTA buses. RNG qualifies as an advanced biofuel under the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Renewable Fuel Standard of 2005.

LANTA’s Executive Director Owen P. O’Neil was joined by UGIES’ Shaun Hart, Vice President of Commodity Marketing, Growth & Retention, in announcing the agreement. “This agreement is yet another step in LANTA’s ongoing commitment to helping create a greener Lehigh Valley…one mile at a time,” O’Neil said.  “Starting in 2010 we put our first hybrid diesel-electric buses on the road, followed by a commitment to clean natural gas vehicles. Now, with this agreement with UGIES, renewable natural gas will power our fleet,” he added.

“We are excited to partner with LANTA in providing RNG to fuel their transportation fleet,” said UGI Energy Services President, Joe Hartz. “This project marks a milestone for UGI Energy Services as this is the first agreement in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for a transportation authority to fuel their vehicles with RNG.  We are proud to help LANTA and the surrounding communities in the Lehigh Valley reduce emissions while lowering their carbon footprint.”

“As we continue to focus on the need to remove carbon from the atmosphere, it is partnerships like this between UGI Energy Services and LANTA that we need more of throughout the Commonwealth,” Senator Lisa Boscola said in a statement.  “The transportation sector must be a focus of new state policies to address emissions and it is my belief that we must work to implement incentives that bring about more partnerships such the UGIES and LANTA that we celebrate today.  While other transit agencies in Pennsylvania use CNG buses, LANTA is the first to commit by contract to purchase renewable biofuel produced by existing landfills in the Commonwealth.

 

Information provided to TVL by:
Chuck Genna
Media Relations Coordinator
Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority

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