Sainsbury’s is beginning daily food deliveries from its depot in Bristol (UK) to the supermarket’s new environmental store in Dartmouth—a 500 km (311 miles) round trip—using a Mercedes-Benz Axor truck fueled with biomethane produced from landfill gas.
The truck is retrofitted with UK-based Clean Air Power’s Genesis Dual-Fuel system, which enables heavy-duty diesel engines to operate primarily on natural gas, with diesel fuel acting as a “liquid spark plug”. (Earlier post.) Using biomethane from landfills can save up to 60% in CO2 emissions compared with diesel fuel, according to Sainsbury’s.
The Genesis Dual-Fuel aftermarket system was developed for the DAF CF85 and Mercedes-Benz Axor Euro III heavy-duty trucks. A Euro V product compatible with SCR (AdBlue) will be available on Volvo’s FM vehicles by the end of 2008. On-road, Genesis delivers 50% to 60% gas substitution, resulting in a greenhouse gas reduction of 10% using fossil fuel methane, according to Clean Air Power.
Dual-Fuel is also available in an ECU-interfaced variant in which the Clean Air Power electronic control unit (ECU)—The Hawk—is interfaced directly with the OEM ECU. Interfaced control delivers the best from the Dual-Fuel system, with optimized emissions of criteria pollutants, a 20% reduction in GHG and 90% fuel substitution. Interfaced Dual-Fuel systems can be offered as a OEM or aftermarket products.
In addition to the current Dual-Fuel technology, Clean Air Power is developing MicroPilot, which will use smaller diesel pilot injections comprising 1-2% of the total fuel to reduce NOx emissions by more than 80%. Clean Air Power intends MicroPilot engines to be compliant with Euro V and beyond.
Other partners in the project with Sainsbury are Gasrec and BOC, who with SITA UK in June began production of liquid biomethane(LBM) for vehicle fuel from the Gasrec plant at SITA UK’s Albury landfill site in Surrey, UK. (Earlier post.)
This is a real first for how food is delivered in the UK, although the technology used is already used in Lille, France where city buses and refuse lorries run on biomethane. Our aim is to now roll this out to our entire fleet so that we can make this technology work for all food deliveries across the UK, it makes complete environmental sense, and given escalating fuel costs, economic sense too. The beauty of it is it doesn’t use any fossil fuel like conventional fuel. This means the methane from rotting rubbish, which is damaging to our climate is put to positive used. We’re extremely proud to be the first UK supermarket to deliver food using these technologies in partnership with Clean Air Power, Gasrec and BOC.
—Alison Austin, environmental affairs manager, Sainsbury’s
Sainsbury’s is aiming to reduce the like-for-like distance its fleet and suppliers travel by 5 million km by 2010. It is also working to convert 20% of its online delivery vehicles to electric vans.
Sainsbury built its environmental store with consideration for the use of energy, water, waste, timber and land, and is aiming to be one of the first supermarkets to achieve a BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) “Excellent” rating for its commitment to sustainable construction. The store will deliver a 40% reduction of overall CO2 emissions compared to a conventional store through a number of measures, including:
Using a biomass boiler for building and water heating, thereby reducing energy taken from the national grid by 50%.
Quiet revolution wind turbines will power the checkouts, and contribute to cutting electricity usage (kWh) by a third.
Lower lighting levels, dimmers and more natural light will also make carbon savings, and cool air will be collected from chillers to keep the store cool during warmer months. Plus all the warehouse lights turn off if no one is there.
The new Sainsbury&rsuqo;s store has been designed to leak less draughts.
Rainwater will be collected, and used to flush customer and colleague toilets, and to irrigate plants. The store will save over more than million liters of mains water every year, and use 60% less water overall.
The store’s construction is also environmentally responsible, and where possible recycled or recyclable materials have been used, or FSC-approved timber. As 200 trees have been used for the frame of the store, Sainsbury’s has since re-planted 400 trees in the local community.
(A hat-tip to John!)