One of the leading retailers in the United Kingdom, ASDA, has contracted Air Liquide to install and operate six biomethane (BioNGV) distribution stations to refuel trucks on its sites. Alongside other investments to increase Air Liquide’s production and distribution capacities, this major contract marks a significant acceleration in the Group’s development of its biomethane activity in the U.K.
British retail group ASDA will commission more than 300 new BioNGV (natural gas for vehicles) trucks in 2021 to reduce the environmental footprint of its transport activities. To support ASDA, Air Liquide will install and operate biomethane stations on six of the retailer’s 15 sites. These stations will refuel both ASDA trucks and those of some partners.
The new stations for ASDA, which will be operational by the first quarter of 2021, will boost Air Liquide's network to 20 filling stations in the U.K. These stations are dedicated to refilling fleets of trucks and buses. At the end of 2019, Air Liquide acquired Gas Bus Alliance, which added 7 biomethane filling stations for buses to its network in the country.
The Group will also install its tenth biomethane production plant in the U.K. by the summer of 2021, near Nottingham, with a production capacity of 90 GWh. Today, Air Liquide’s biomethane production capacity in the U.K. amounts to 650 GWh per year, which is enough to supply 1,000 trucks.
Air Liquide operates all along the biomethane value chain, with a circular economy approach, from the production and purification of biogas into biomethane in the plants it operates, to its injection into natural gas grids, and its uses, in particular as an alternative solution to traditional fuels for a cleaner mobility. Indeed, biomethane, produced from agricultural, industrial, or household waste, reduces transport CO2 emissions by 90 percent, particles by 85 percent and noise up to 50 percent compared to diesel.
Emilie Mouren-Renouard, member of the Air Liquide executive committee, in charge of innovation, digital and IT, intellectual property and global markets and technologies world business unit, said, “We are very pleased to support our customers who choose renewable fuels to reduce their emissions. Thanks to a wealth of expertise and experience along the entire biomethane value chain, Air Liquide is strengthening its unique position in the United Kingdom and contributes to the construction of a low-carbon society and to the fight against climate change.”
