Mercer County is helping contribute to a cleaner environment with the opening of a Compressed Natural Gas fuelling station in Hermitage.
The station, at 5250 Virginia Road, is one of the 24 CNG fuelling stations planned as part of a Public-Private Partnership with PennDOT, Trillium CNG, and Mercer County Regional Council of Government.
“Pennsylvania is now a leading producer of natural gas, and this initiative aims to take advantage of that new, cleaner-burning fuel source,” said PennDOT Deputy Secretary for Multimodal Jennie Granger. “PennDOT is excited to be part of this program that will bring benefits for the state, transit agencies, and the public for years to come.”
Through an $84.5 million statewide P3 project, Trillium is designing, building, financing, and will operate and maintain CNG fuelling stations at 24 public transit agency sites through a 20-year P3 agreement. Other stations will be constructed over the next several years, and Trillium is also making CNG-related upgrades to existing transit maintenance facilities.
PennDOT’s overall P3 project includes CNG fuelling accessible to the public at six transit agency sites, with the option to add to sites in the future. PennDOT will receive a royalty, excluding taxes, for each gallon of fuel sold to the public at public sites, which will be used to support the project’s cost.
Using the P3 procurement mechanism allows PennDOT to install the fuelling stations faster than if a traditional procurement mechanism were used for each site, resulting in significant estimated capital cost savings of more than $46 million.
Source: WFMJ