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BY JOHN MURAWSKI - Staff writer
The state's natural gas industry is pushing ahead with a strategy to promote cars powered by compressed natural gas.

PSNC Energy, the Triangle's natural gas utility, this week asked regulators to approve a rate PSNC would charge to motorists filling up at PSNC-owned filling stations. The Gastonia company is planning to open three stations in the state this year.

PSNC would compete with electric utilities promoting electric vehicles that recharge from public charging stations and home-charging stations.

The cost of compressed natural gas fuel fluctuates with market conditions but is generally less than half the cost of gasoline.

With the addition of three PSNC stations - in North Raleigh, East Raleigh and Gastonia - North Carolina will have about a dozen public stations for compressed natural gas, or CNG. Charlotte-based Piedmont Natural Gas already has stations in Charlotte and Greensboro and plans to add up to five more in the state in the coming year.

Nationwide there are about 1,000 such stations, mostly in California and the Midwest, and most of the users are government and industrial truck and transportation fleets.

PSNC had previously asked the N.C. Utilities Commission to be allowed to offer financing to homeowners and businesses that want to install their own natural gas pumps, which can cost about $7,500. The commission is expected to approve the request.

Cars powered by CNG are among the most economical in the world. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy ranked the CNG Honda Civic as the greenest car in America for the past eight years. Natural gas is the cleanest-burning fossil fuel, producing virtually no mercury and half the greenhouse gas output of coal-burning power plants, the main fuel source for electric cars.

CNG cars are rare, however, largely because of the near-total lack of infrastructure to get them refilled. Honda produced just 990 of its Civic GX models this year and plans about 2,000 for the 2012 model year.

Conversions are also an option, albeit a costly one, creating dual-fuel cars that run on CNG or gasoline.

What the rate would be

PSNC is requesting approval for a proposed CNG rate of $1.11 in gas-gallon equivalents. However, the retail rate would come to about $1.79 with taxes and other fees.

Piedmont Natural Gas is approved for two seasonal rates ($1.04 and $1.06 in gas gallon equivalents), but customers pay $1.63 after taxes and fees.

The City of Raleigh's public CNG pump, at the city's heavy equipment depot on New Bern Avenue, charges $1.79. Raleigh does not need approval from the utilities commission to sell CNG to the public.


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