On 4 December AGA held an official opening ceremony for Norway´s first filling station for liquid biogas in Oslo. The goal is to establish a infrastructure of filling stations making it possible for heavy transport to drive on environmental friendly fuel between the larger cities in Norway.
AGA has already built 19 stations for compressed biogas, while the 20th station launched yesterday is the first for liquid biogas.
The Norwegian Minister of Climate and Environment, Ola Elvestuen, congratulated AGA and said they have every reason to be proud of the new filling station and the work AGA does to contribute to environmental zero emission fuel for heavy transport. “This is not a transition technology, but a technology that will last and join us into the future. Norway is a role model showing the world that the changes we have to make are possible – even much faster than most people expect.”
AGA has contributed to the distribution of biogas for more than 10 years, and liquid biogas for the transport sector is now competitive with diesel. A further 10-15 filling stations are planned ahead. «In April we are opening the next filling station for compressed biogas in Halden, and the plan is to extend both this station and the one in Hamar to liquid biogas. In addition we will soon build a liquid gas station in Trondheim”, says John Melby in AGA.
«Politicians have the toolkit with everything from tax exemptions and financial investment support via ENOVA. The vehicle producers are positive contributors, infrastructure of filling stations are being built, the framework is being improved and a lot is already in place for a zero emission fuel take off”, says Tor Husebø, Manager for Clean Energy in Region Northern Europe.
The biogas used by AGA is local, Norwegian organic waste from garbage, deposits from fish farming, farm animals, sewage, the forest industry and more. The most important incentive for further development is for biogas vehicles to receive the same advantages in the toll booths as electric cars, measures that have shown great success.
Lan Marie Nguyen Berg, Oslo City Council for Environment and Transport, talked about biogas as an important part of the road towards a fossil free transport sector and towards making Oslo a zero emission city within the next 12 years. “Biogas is our first fuel choice for heavy transport in Oslo and we are working on incentives to assist the transport sector in the transformation.” Heavy transport represents 20 percent of total emissions in Oslo.