Gaynor Hartnell, CEO of the RFTA interviews Harry Campey, Commercial Operations Director, Campeys of Selby at Road Expo 2024, after he gave this presentation (which has calculations on savings and payback periods).
Hello Harry, do you want to introduce Campeys and tell us about your fleet?
We’re a 4th generation family business. We had two trucks in 2007, that my parents purchased off my granddad and his brothers, and it’s grown to 130 trucks and 260 trailers today. We have 5 depots in Yorkshire, employ 170 staff and have a turnover of over £20 million.
Can you tell me about your biomethane trucks
We’ve got two different types of bio CNG trucks. We started off with six Scania R410 4×2 tractor units in September 2021. They run on biomethane, compressed at 250 bar. They’ve got a range of 350-500km depending on the weight they carry, and give a 90% CO2 reduction compared to a Euro 6 Diesel truck. They’ve been fantastic.
We then purchased Iveco S-Way 460 6×2 tractor units. We went down this route to give us more flexibility on reloads, as we could only run on 40 tonne with the Scanias. The Ivecos are 44 tonne, their range is a little less, at 250-400km due to the reduced distance between the axles.
Earlier this year we put a long range Hexagon Agility tank behind the cab on one of our three specialist glass trucks. This gave us double the range, with a sacrifice of less than 500kg in payload. We think we were the first people in the UK to do this. These trucks go out full and come back empty, and have a range of 900km.
Can you describe the fuelling operation, Harry?
We use CNG Fuels’ filling stations. All the trucks have tag on the key, which the diver scans in, he pulls up at the pump, puts the pipe on and in 6 minutes he’s good to go. The pump has a red and green light on the top, so the driver doesn’t need to stand there watching it going in. It’s closed loop, no venting, ambient temperature and so no extra PPE is required on the driver’s part. The truck with the extra Hexagon tank just has one filling point which does all the tanks on the tractor taking about 10 to 12 minutes. It’s all very straight forward.
CNG Fuels has 14 stations in the UK, and there are more coming on stream, so every year it gets easier. The current coverage means we can get to 90% of country.
To train drivers we normally show them a YouTube video, and assist them on their first refuelling experience. We show the drivers once and they can’t go wrong.
What drove your move to biomethane?
We are aiming to be net carbon zero by 2030, in our own right, but also sustainability is so high up agenda when it comes to competing for tenders now. Five years ago sustainability wasn’t even on the tender documents, and a couple years ago it was down the bottom of the tender. Now it’s the second question after the company name and address.
So how do you demonstrate your environmental credentials?
We give our customers CO2 reports. These set out the number of loads that we completed with the CNG trucks and the amount Kg of CO2 saved. We won’t be the only haulier that works for them, and this illustrates to them that if they give us more work they will increase their CO2 savings. This gives us commercial leverage with our customers.
I’ll give you an example. Last year we had a tender last year with our biggest customer, a Nordics based company, who are huge on sustainability. It’s a huge contract, a £5,000,000 a year spend. They could have gone with another haulier which was £200k cheaper, but that saving wasn’t enough for them for to lose the CO2 savings that we provided. They were OK with paying that extra £200k in order to report their savings under scope 3 GHG emissions.
With new customers as soon as you mention you’ve got Zero emission trucks or 90% GHG saving trucks, their ears prick up.
And what about the financial impact on your own operations?
It’s cheaper to run on bio CNG than diesel. Looking at the figures for our 4×2 Scanias, which have a 5 year operational life and average 130,000 km a year, at this weeks gas price of 84 p/Kilo versus £1.12 per litre for diesel, plus the money we save from not needing AdBlue, gives us a pay back of less than two years, and then we’re into savings. The lifetime savings after the capital is paid back is just over £46,000 per truck, plus you are getting 93 tonnes per year of CO2 emissions reductions. Now obviously this can change with fuel prices, but that is a snapshot for this week for our Scanias.
The equivalent calculations on the Iveco 6x2s gives a 3 year payback and a £12.7k annual saving. Lifetime savings currently £25K per truck, and these trucks save an average of 116 tonnes per year of CO2. Scania’s new 652 that were unveiled at the Road Transport EXP are going to be a game changer. On general haulage the 6×2 option is definitely preferred because of the flexibility. With reloads you don’t want to suddenly find you’re overweight on your drive axle. With a good price and a good range I can see us wanting 10 – 15 of these trucks in our fleet next year.
So can you summarise the pros and cons of moving to biomethane
Apart from the savings and the competitive advantages I’ve described, these trucks are quieter than diesel. Once the drivers have got their heads around these new trucks, they prefer them. One added bonus that had never occurred to us is that this fuel can’t be stolen. There are hotspots in the country where if our diesel trucks park overnight, we know full well that their fuel will be gone the next morning. Our gas truck drivers can park anywhere they want.
On the negative side, the range is not quite on a par with diesel. We can have issues with our 4×2 trucks due to the weight, and we have had to recover trucks that have run out of gas as there is no real way to transfer the gas to the truck when its out and about. This has happened multiple times. A few weeks ago we had a glass truck that went out on the usual job, but the customer refused half the load. Because the truck was heavy coming back, it didn’t make it to the refuelling site, so we had to go and recover it. So drivers can have range anxiety but once you get them in the truck and they get comfortable, that soon goes away.
In summary quite simply I’d say that bio CNG is stepping stone between diesel and zero emissions. It gives us a huge competitive advantage. I could see biomethane comprising more than 60% of our trucks by 2030.
Obviously, we’re keeping a keen eye on battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell and hydrogen internal combustion, but quite simply bio CNG is a quick and easy save of CO2 at cost parity. CNG Fuels is future proofing their business and their sites so they will be ready for hydrogen in the future. They have good, strategically-placed sites so they won’t go to waste when bio CNG is decline, in maybe a decade’s time.
