Engie Teams up with Carrefour on French Bio-CNG

French utility Engie said July 4 that by end-2017 a fleet of 200 Carrefour trucks, delivering to the firm's supermarkets in France, will be fuelled by compressed biomethane.

The two companies inaugurated a public filling station for natural gas vehicles (NGVs) in the Paris region at La Courneuve on July 4 to kickstart the deployment of these lower-emission trucks and said eight more NGV filling stations will open during the course of this year, with the 200 trucks eventually delivering to Carrefour's 250 urban stores in Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux and Lille. In some of these cities, limits on diesel-fuelled trucks have been, or are being, introduced.

Engie said that biomethane leads to a 75% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, zero particulates, and half the noise of diesel trucks. It said the new filling station at La Courneuve would enable 60 Carrefour trucks to refuel a day, and that it would also be open to the public, and designed to refuel coaches and domestic refuse trucks. It will also supply liquid nitrogen for cooling refrigerated food trailers. 

The nine outlets will be run by Engie-owned GNVert, which already operates 140 vehicle-refuelling stations offering CNG, bio-CNG, LNG and hydrogen.

New head of Engie Asia Pacific

Engie meanwhile announced July 3 that Paul Maguire was appointed CEO of Engie Asia Pacific from June 1 2017, succeeding Jan Flachet who is retiring. Maguire had been CEO of Singapore's largest power generator Senoko Energy, which is part-owned by Engie, until recently. Also Nadine Jaudet has been named as the new director of Engie Global Business Support, the group's shared services centre, from September 1.

Mark Smedley