Dean Foods will add 64 compressed natural gas vehicles as well as a private fuel station built by Clean Energy Fuels later this year. The fueling station will be built at the Oak Farms Dairy plant in Houston and will fuel Dean Foods’ CNG vehicles beginning in the second half of this year.
Dean Foods will deploy 57 CNG Freightliner M2-112 straight trucks and 7 Freightliner Cascadia over-the-road tractors powered by the Cummins ISL G and ISX12 G engines, respectively. All vehicles will be outfitted with Agility CNG fuel tanks.
“We see the value a cleaner and more cost-effective fuel can provide to our company, our stakeholders and our community,” said Mike Ahart, vice president, Dean Foods. “We are pleased to add these natural gas vehicles as a component of our ongoing sustainable business practices.”
As part of its overall greenhouse gas reduction goal, Dean Foods set a goal in 2008 to reduce its distribution fleet’s CO2 emissions by 50,000 metric tons by 2013 – a goal surpassed by the end of 2010. The goal was revised in 2012 to reduce distribution emissions 95,000 metric tons by 2020.
The facility will be engineered with the ability to expand to accommodate fueling a fleet of 120 CNG commercial vehicles.
“The introduction of natural gas into the fuel mix of the Oak Farms Dairy fleet is a positive step and we are eager to help this industry-leading company succeed with CNG,” said Chad Lindholm, vice president, Clean Energy.
A grant covering a portion of the vehicle costs has been provided to Dean Foods under the Texas Natural Gas Vehicle Grant Program (TNGVGP), funded by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TECQ).
