City of San Diego Compressed Natural Gas Fueling Facility Final Report

The City of San Diego’s Environmental Services Department’s compressed natural gas refueling station project installed new infrastructure at an existing operations yard located at the Collection Services Division at 8353 Miramar Place in San Diego. A grant from the CEC allowed the City of San Diego to purchase several key pieces of equipment necessary to complete the fueling station, the first phase of which was completed in spring 2017. The new facility serves the needs of both the Division as their current diesel collections fleet is in the process of being replaced with compressed natural gas-fueled collection vehicles. This facility also accomplishes a major goal of the City of San Diego to significantly reduce large amounts of greenhouse gases from its vehicle fleet. The facility allows vehicles to effectively utilize their entire fuel capacity via a slow fill fueling method, which further increases the efficiency of the fleet, as well as provides a significant cost savings by eliminating the need to rely on privately run fueling facilities.

Construction was accomplished through a contract with EFS West. The first phase of the project included the installation of natural gas compressors designed by Clean Energy Compression, 13 Fastech quad-hose time-fill assemblies, a dual hose fast-fill dispenser, and three storage tanks. This first phase allows the facility to fuel 52 vehicles simultaneously.

In 2018, the goal is to complete the final phases of the project which involve the installation of additional fueling hoses, as well as additional compressed natural gas storage tanks. When the final phase is complete, the facility will have the capability of fueling 140 compressed natural gas vehicles simultaneously.