Biomethane for transport applications - The Biogas: Science, Production and Applications - page 433

for three years in a row, even though the total market doubled during the
same period.
The successful building of the current Swedish NGV market (1% of the
total road transport market) and its high proportion of biomethane use was
made possible by the joint efforts of public and private actors. Regional
platforms of public-private partnerships promoting NGVs and biomethane
have been and still are instrumental in development and promotional work.
These local and regional efforts were incentivized by the ambitious
environmental goal programme of the state, assigned to public actors to
fulfill. An important tool was the regional and local government
procurements that created long-term demand for increasing shares of
renewable fuels in all types of vehicles contracted by the public, such as taxi
services and buses. The bus market is still the single most important market,
covering approximately 50% of the sales volumes. It has been shown that
the bus fleet operators provided the essential niche for the growth of the
emerging market of gas-powered vehicles in Sweden, facilitating the later
introduction of a larger and more diversified market (Sande´ n and Jonasson,
2005). The joint vision of the four largest regional government actors and
the national association in eventually reaching 100% renewability shows the
necessity of providing more and more renewable methane in order to meet
customer expectations. The most ambitious actor is the public transport
authority in the south, Ska˚ netrafiken, which is converting the buses in its
intercity bus segment (Fig. 18.4).
There were 1529 gas buses on the road in Sweden in 2011; 600 of these
were deployed in Ska˚ ne, 200 in Stockholm, 200 in Gothenburg and
surroundings (Va¨ sttrafik) and 158 in Linko¨ ping/Norrko¨ ping and surround-
ings (O ¨ stgo¨ tatrafiken). Numbers are still increasing: national bus operator
Keolishave ordered 433 new buses for delivery by summer 2012.
In addition to state funding over the years, the Swedish NGV market has
enjoyed the benefits of several market incentives such as investment grants
for refueling stations and free parking. Still in force and most important are
tax exemption (until 2013) and the fringe benefit taxation reduction for
company cars (around 900

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per year until the end of 2012). Quite a large
share of light-duty vehicles (LDVs) has been introduced to the NGV market
through this route. All new eco-labelled LDVs are exempt of vehicle tax for
a period of 5 years after purchase; this policy has turned out to impact
diesel-powered cars, since their vehicle tax is very high, while the tax on
NGVs is already quite low. Today, however, the largest concern of the
market players is lack of long-term commitment in government policy. The
beneficial policies are unsecure or low and there is a lack of tools to meet the
national grand vision of a fossil-free transport sector in 2030.

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