Whitbread and ENN have opened a HGV liquid natural gas fuelling station at its Wellingborough depot.

The station is used to refuel 16 dual-fuel, natural gas-powered HGVs for Whitbread commercial operations around the UK, such as Premier Inn and Costa Coffee.

The station is the first deployment in Europe of a 45’ ISO containerised “plug and play” liquefied natural gas (LNG) refuelling station, 200+ of which already operate successfully in China. This compact, unmanned  system dramatically reduces lead times for the installation of refuelling infrastructure, and provides a fast and reliable solution for natural gas vehicle refuelling.

The station design uses a modular approach: extra storage capacity can be added as and when required, as can additional dispensers and cryogenic pumps, and the station can also be expanded to enable refuelling with compressed natural gas (CNG).

“ENN has ambitious plans to rapidly develop a network of natural gas refuelling stations in Northwest Europe, and will open several more stations in the UK, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany in 2015” said Michael Liu, General Manager of ENN Europe.

“Our aim is to ultimately provide seamless LNG refuelling for companies like Kuehne + Nagel and Whitbread throughout the UK and the whole of Europe, and Wellingborough marks an important milestone on this journey.”