CNG use soars in Czech Republic

© CPSSkoda offers two CNG-powered models (Octavia, pictured, and Citigo), but doesn't stop the Czech Republic from growing strong on compressed methane

If you enjoy numbers, you're going to love this! Across the entire 2015, 43,59 million cubic metres of compressed natural gas were sold in the small central-European country, which means rise by a whopping 45,7 percent over the year 2014! But what's even more impressive is that popularity of methane used as motor fuel has grown 12-fold in the past 10 years. If this fails to make your jaw drop at least a little, we don't know what will.

Meanwhile, the number of NGVs rose by 4000 in 2015 and is now 13 thousand, which means a growth rate of 44,4 percent. Interestingly, only 880 of the current number are public transport buses, which are in use in 45 towns and cities across the country. Still, the untapped potential of CNG remains huge, since the 13 thousand NGVs only account for 0,2 percent of all vehicles on Czech roads today.

As for refueling stations, there are currently 110 of them across the Czech part of the former Czechoslovakia and 35 of them were completed and launched in 2015 alone. Mind you, these are just the publicly available stations, while in reality there are more, although some are private, used by the companies who built them on their premises. We wish the CNG sector in Czech Republic a continuing growth!

The Czech Republic has seen a fundamental positive development in the use of natural gas in transport. The consumption of CNG grows very fast every year. In the previous year it grew by 36%. We are convinced that within three to five years there will be 200 up to 300 CNG stations in the Czech Republic and that the use of natural gas as an economical and most eco-friendly fuel in transport will keep accelerating markedly.

Jiri Simek, board deputy chairman, CPS (Czech Gas Association)