Pradhan launches first CNG bus that will run 1,000 km in one fill
Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has unveiled India's first long distance Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) bus fitted with composite CNG cylinders, which can travel around 1,000 kilometres in a single fill. Indraprastha Gas Limited (IGL) has executed the project and has been achieved through design of Type IV Composite Cylinders in buses, replacing traditional very heavy Type-I Carbon Steel cylinders. Mahindra & Mahindra along with Agility Fuel Solutions of USA have partnered with IGL for introducing the new concept of light weight Type IV composite cylinders in buses.
IGL has executed five Mahindra's Type IV buses. The Buses would be given to Uttarakhand Transport Corporation (UTC) on a lease basis after the launch. These will run on Inter-city routes from Delhi to Dehradun and will be the first CNG Buses in Uttarakhand.
These Type IV Composite cylinders are 70 per cent lighter than the Type-I all steel cylinders which are used in India currently. Due to light weight, the number of cylinders can be increased in the vehicle, creating more storage capacity on-board. The buses which used to carry only 80-100 Kg of CNG with steel cylinders can carry 225-275 Kg of CNG with new composite cylinders would results in higher range. Buses fitted with Type IV Composite cylinders have a running range of 800- 1000 KM per fill of CNG.
Pradhan thinks that the cost of composite cylinders needs to be brought down and economics of scale needs to be achieved if it has to be made popular and acceptable. According to him even after shifting of the entire public transport fleet in the national capital to CNG as per the mandate of Supreme Court, inter-state buses coming from other cities to Delhi continue to run on diesel.
Delhi Transport Corporation had stopped all its inter-state routes in 2001 due to unavailability of CNG in the neighbouring states and on-board storage issues restricting the range of current CNG buses to 200-250 Km per fill only.
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