Clean cars with Green Gas Certificates (for Utrecht province)

The Province of Utrecht is greening its fleet of cars. The 11 shared cars for service journeys and the 12 cars used by the enforcement and roads departments will from now on run on natural gas, compensated for with Green Gas Certificates from Essent. Natural gas is a clean, cheap fuel. A car running on natural gas emits 90% less nitrogen dioxide (NOx) than a car running on fuels such as petrol or diesel. Cars running on natural gas emit zero particulates, which is good for the air quality.

The new car fleet of the Province of Utrecht started operating on 9 February. Deputy De Jong said: “We are aiming to create a sustainable society, so for this reason we are making use of clean, sustainable fuels. I am therefore very pleased that we have taken this step. What is more, we offer financial support to private individuals, entrepreneurs and petrol stations who opt to use natural gas.”

While awaiting the construction of a public natural gas filling station nearby, the cars can be filled up at a filling point on the site of the provincial government headquarters. This filling point was formally inaugurated on 9 February.

For every quantity of natural gas bought by the Province of Utrecht, an equal quantity of biogas is generated and added to the natural gas network in the Netherlands. As a result, cars used by the Province of Utrecht government will soon be carbon neutral. The Province of Utrecht has bought green gas certificates for this purpose from Essent, the supplier of the natural gas.

"With Green Gas we are making a positive contribution to achieving the sustainable mobility objectives drawn up by the provincial government," says Jacob Ruiter, director of Essent B2B, the Essent subsidiary that deals with large business customers. "At this time, we are supplying Green Gas to the Province's filling point, and we are certainly going to do research into whether we can also supply public natural gas filling stations in Utrecht."

By making use of Green Gas, the provincial government is reducing its CO2 emissions and is underlining its objective to conduct a carbon-neutral operation. The provincial government received the Green Gas Certificate for green gas. Because everyone benefits from clean air and everyone can contribute to this.

Published: 09 February 2009