Home fueling in PG&E-land

[Janet]

Hi, I'm a new member here who's interested in purchasing a CNG car. Right now I'm reading a lot of older threads and trying to work out the economics of fueling.

I'd like to be able to do fueling at home, but I'm not sure that I can make the math work in the area where I live. I'm in PG&E territory so both NG and electricity are expensive, though ironically the electricity prices may do me in. Here's what I mean:

Buying CNG from PG&E fill station: $2.12/gge as of 12/07 (tariff G-NGV2)
Buying NG for home compression: $1.16/gge as of 12/07 (tariff G-NGV1)

From what I've been able to find out, the better units (like the FM4) pump roughly 1gge/Hr and consume 1.5Kw. At a marginal cost of $0.30/Kw-Hr (the energy bracket I'd end up in if I pumped enough at home for a commute), that comes out to an extra $0.45/gge for the energy needed to compress it:

Total CNG cost, home compression: $1.61/gge

Ok, so that saves $0.51/gge. If the FM4 needs rebuilding every 4000gge for $1000, then during that 4000gge I'll have saved about $2040 in fuel costs, so my net benefit comes out to $1040/4000gge. This means I might be able to pay off the sunk cost of the pump and secondary meter after pumping 17000gge, which is something like half a million miles on a Honda GX.

This doesn't make sense for me to do. If I could get some kind of electricity subsidy like what they have for electric cars, the numbers would look a lot better, but I don't think that I can. I realize that current costs can change easily, but that's a hard thing to count on.

So, have I missed anything obvious? It looks like if an FM4 fell off of a truck and landed on my patio it would make sense to use it, but not otherwise.

Thanks,

-Janet

[cngprices]

Re: Home fueling in PG&E-land

Janet -

I'm happy to see that someone else did that calculation. When I got my car, I did a quick calculation in my head about it and it didn't seem to work that well from a financial standpoint with the expense of the re-build. It's good to see that a more quantitative look at it agrees with my initial estimates.

It may come down to just whether the convenience of not having to go to a fill station is enough for you to justify the cost. If you include the cost of your time at a reasonable billing rate, I'm sure the Phill station would do well for you. But if, like me, there are times when just saving raw money makes more sense even if it takes more time, then you might just keep filling up at the stations.

Cheers,
Todd

[Janet]

Re: Home fueling in PG&E-land

It may come down to just whether the convenience of not having to go to a fill station is enough for you to justify the cost. If you include the cost of your time at a reasonable billing rate, I'm sure the Phill station would do well for you. But if, like me, there are times when just saving raw money makes more sense even if it takes more time, then you might just keep filling up at the stations.

Cheers,
Todd

This makes a lot of sense. As far as convenience is concerned, I live about a mile from a PG&E CNG station (Davis, CA), and there are two others along my commute corridor. If I had to drive out of my way to fill up then a home fill station would probably make more sense.

I did some more digging and found that PG&E does have an experimental TOU rate schedule for LEV users - schedule E-9, effective as of 11/1/2007. This might drop my electric rate for home fueling, but would also require another meter...I'll have to run the numbers but I don't think it will help enough to make it viable.

I'm still jealous of the prices in Utah.

-Janet

[John Mitton]

Re: Home fueling in PG&E-land

Welcome to CNGchat Janet!

Another consideration is the FM4 (or FM2) you install will probably not lose much value. So for my purchase decision I did not even amortize the cost of the unit, other than perhaps lost opportunity should I have instead invested the money. You probably saw my post in this forum as to why I passed on Phill.

[Timon]

Re: Home fueling in PG&E-land

Hi Janet,

You could invest in Solar Electric for your home. That would knock off not only the cost power needed to compress the gas but much of your normal electric bill as well.

[cngmike]

Re: Home fueling in PG&E-land

A couple of nights ago, My son had to go to a third station at 2:00 am to fill his car. That is when home fueling really pencils out. Unless a station is built with 2 compressors with separate control panels and 2 dispensers with separate card readers, you stand the chance of a station leaving you lonely. As gasoline goes up home CE will make home fueling make more sense. I am going through the hoops with the city right now to install a unit.

[CNG MOTORS]

Re: Home fueling in PG&E-land

You can buy a good used FM2 for about $4500. I've sold these in the past for this amount regardless if the unit was 10 years old or 2 years old. As long as it works it's worth about this much. Your true cost is the rebuild every 4000 gallons devided what you are paying for the head plus about 1-5 cents per gallon for the electricity. The unit should you ever sell it again down the road is still worth $4500. And with the rate the Fuelmaker keeps increasing the price of the unit it may even be worth more in the future

FM4 heads by the way are usually only good for 3000 hours.

Murf

[cngmike]

Re: Home fueling in PG&E-land

I remember when CNG cars sold for less than there Gasoline counter parts. and FMs for 2400.00.

[Janet]

Re: Home fueling in PG&E-land

You can buy a good used FM2 for about $4500. I've sold these in the past for this amount regardless if the unit was 10 years old or 2 years old. As long as it works it's worth about this much. Your true cost is the rebuild every 4000 gallons devided what you are paying for the head plus about 1-5 cents per gallon for the electricity. The unit should you ever sell it again down the road is still worth $4500. And with the rate the Fuelmaker keeps increasing the price of the unit it may even be worth more in the future

FM4 heads by the way are usually only good for 3000 hours.

Murf

I'm wondering where the 1-5 cents per gallon is coming from...that might be the case where you can get cheap electricity, but here, there's no way that I can see you being able to compress natural gas that cheaply. About how much power do these things use while compressing? I've heard 800W tossed around for the Phill (at 0.5gge/Hr), which comes out to about $0.48/gge with $0.30/kw-hr electricity.

Out here even plug-in electric cars don't make sense without electricity subsidies. :-/

-Janet

[CNG MOTORS]

Re: Home fueling in PG&E-land

Mike I to remember those days when gasoline was under $2/gallon and you could get a CNG cavalier for next to nothing. The last GSA cavalier sold for almost $10,000 a week ago or so. And this is now the reality. You could get a C3 for $800, wow those were the days.

Janet - Not sure if you have a reduced KW/hr rate like we do here in AZ. But the majority of your refueling will be done at night while you are sleeping which is when electricity is the cheapest because of less demand during off-peak hours. For us here is AZ that's what it works out to be. 220V and 15 amps is what it draws

Electrical Supply
240 Volts AC, Single Phase, 60 Hz

Full Load Amperage
7 to 8 Amps

Average Power Consumption over Typical Fill Cycle
1.0 to 1.5 kWh

[taz]

Re: Home fueling in PG&E-land

I'd like to be able to do fueling at home, but I'm not sure that I can make the math work in the area where I live. I'm in PG&E territory so both NG and electricity are expensive, though ironically the electricity prices may do me in. Here's what I mean:

Buying CNG from PG&E fill station: $2.12/gge as of 12/07 (tariff G-NGV2)
Buying NG for home compression: $1.16/gge as of 12/07 (tariff G-NGV1)

From what I've been able to find out, the better units (like the FM4) pump roughly 1gge/Hr and consume 1.5Kw. At a marginal cost of $0.30/Kw-Hr (the energy bracket I'd end up in if I pumped enough at home for a commute), that comes out to an extra $0.45/gge for the energy needed to compress it:

Total CNG cost, home compression: $1.61/gge

-Janet

Hehe.. Then you should be happy you dont live in Sweden then Bah.. why do you have to use this GGE formula when counting gas? It makes it a lot harder for me to calculate and compare.. Germans and other Europe country uses "kg" (kilogram) and we in Sweden uses nm3 (duh, Swedes are stuipd too) ...

Well i converted it..

1 gge = 2,5kg CNG
1 gge = 3,125 nm3..
1 SEK = 6.64$

So.. our CNG costs 10,50 SEK/nm3 and now the dollar is very cheep to. Cheapest rates ever infact .. Well.. Here in Sweden we pay 5 USD/GGE if my formula is correct..

So.. If the map with fueling stations for US i have seen is correct and there exists gas for 0,64$/GGE ill bring some BIG tanks to US

Sweden is quite expensive on CNG and CBG but Germany is a lot cheaper but still not in your price level

Electric in Sweden is like 0,15-0,20$/KWh ...

Just wanted to compare

[holtek]

Re: Home fueling in PG&E-land

It's not always about what's cheaper. For me, the nearest gas station with CNG is over 20 miles away. Home refueling is my only option. Plus, there's a big benefit to me not having to stand outside in sub-zero temperatures to fill my car up!

[OhMyGas]

Re: Home fueling in PG&E-land

For me one more aspect was not to have to leave the faster moving HOV to go to a station.

[hpage66]

Re: Home fueling in PG&E-land

Note that PG&E apparently offers time of use electric pricing (tariff E9) for both EV charging and CNG fueling. See:

http://www.pge.com/myhome/environmen...es/index.shtml

and

http://www.pge.com/myhome/environmen...es/index.shtml

Regards,

Howard

[lcovelli]

Re: Home fueling in PG&E-land

Hi All,
Has anyone used this rate and has it helped?