On April 6, 2017 at the 4th Annual Rally at the Raceway, Virginia Clean Cities announced the recipients of the 2017 Governor’s Green Fleet Awards.
These awards recognized governments and fleets that excelled in the adoption of alternative fuels, reducing greenhouse gas emission, and reducing petroleum use.
Dominion Resources was inducted into the Governor’s Green Fleet Hall of Fame for petroleum reduction.
Dominion has been utilizing biofuels in their fleet since 2007. They have over 1,500 on-road alternative fuel vehicles in their fleet in the Commonwealth. Most of these vehicles run on biofuel, but Dominion also utilizes electric vehicles, hybrids and E85. In addition to the fuel savings and environmental benefits, Dominion invests in alternative vehicle technologies to reduce work site noise, decrease reliance on foreign oil and provide healthier work conditions for their crew. In 2016 alone, Dominion reduced nearly 700,000 gallons of petroleum.
SuperValu was also inducted into the Governor’s Green Fleet Hall of Fame for greenhouse gas reduction.
SuperValu has used biodiesel in several of their heavy duty class 8 tractor fleets for some time. They now operate 110 heavy duty biodiesel vehicles. In addition, they operate 70 CNG tractor trailers that save more than a million gallons of petroleum a year. They also recently built a new refueling station at their headquarters outside Richmond. Supervalu receives this award because they have reduced over 1.5 million tons of greenhouse gases last year with their vehicles.
The Public Green Fleet of the Year Award was awarded to City of Chesapeake.
City of Chesapeake runs vehicles on clean fuels including CNG, LPG and dedicated electric. The City is in the process of installing an E85 tank for use by its fleet. A public access fast-fill CNG station is also underway, and will join the City’s existing public-fleet access LPG station. The City currently operates 46 CNG, 22 LPG, 2 electric and over 338 E85 powered vehicles
Van Go of Richmond was presented with the Private Green Fleet of the Year Award.
Based in Richmond, Van Go is one of the largest privately owned non-emergency medical transport fleets in Central Virginia. In April of 2013, Sid Del Cardayre made the decision to go all in on converting his large fleet to cleaner burning propane autogas using only private investment with no government assistance. To date, over 80% of Van Go’s 50+ vehicle fleet operates on autogas and their new vehicle purchase decisions take into consideration vehicles that are EPA-certified to run on the clean alternative. At the 2016 BusCon in Indianapolis, PERC recognized Van Go with the Top User of Propane Autogas award. Sid and GM Travis Snellings, have been proactive advocates of the alternative fuel through their local partnerships and national connections in the industry.
The Clean City of the Year Award was presented to City of Newport News.
The City of Newport News and Newport News Public Schools were submitted as alternative fuel transition leaders and are being recognized for their continued progress. Their past work involved converting 28 vehicles to run on alternative fuel. This past year they have placed 24 dedicated alternative fuel school buses in service and converted an additional 21 pickup trucks to run on propane autogas. This significant progress is worth celebrating. Congratulations Newport News Virginia!
Through the VERDE grant program, the City of Roanoke was awarded the Diesel Reduction Champion Award.
The Vehicle Emission Reduction Deployment and Education Program is an EPA-funded National Clean Diesel Campaign Grant. Virginia Clean Cities has partnered with the City of Roanoke to replace older, heavy-duty diesel trucks with trucks that operate on the cleaner, domestic, affordable propane autogas (LPG). Mike Cosby and the City of Roanoke have been long-time leaders in the adoption of alternative fuels. The replacement of these three diesel landscape trucks to LPG reduces diesel consumption by 2,300 gallons annually.
Barbara Simcoe and Robin Jones were presented with the Biofuels Infrastructure Partnership Award for their work and dedication on the BIP project.
To date, the Virginia Maryland Biofuel Infrastrucutre Partnership has installed 15 ethanol stations in the region. With many more stations planned for this year, the project will radically alter the biofuels market in Virginia. Without the hard work and dedication of Robin Jones and Barbara Simcoe at Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals, and Energy, the successes of this project would not be possible. Beyond BIP, Robin and Barbara have been critical assets to the Commonwealth for alternative fuel projects and programs in the state’s Alt Fuel transition and various Department of Energy federal grant applications.
Virginia Clean Cities was also proud to present the Stakeholder of the Year Award to Erick Pinzon.
Erick Pinzon got his start tuning and restoring BMWs as a Master Technician at Checkered Flag BMW. Everything changed when he first got a ride in a Tesla Roadster in 2011 and he felt what instant torque was. Ultimately, Erick accepted a job with Tesla in San Diego. Once he was surrounded by Tesla, the owners, and the plug-in community, it changed his perspective on life. He began riding his bicycle to work, eating less meat, helping with clean the beach and trail events regularly and started advocating for the environment. Traveling for Tesla now gives Erick the opportunity to advocate for the destination charger program and the environment. In 2016, Erick collaboratively led the critically needed installation of 26 EV chargers around the state of Virginia.
Virginia Clean Cities and Governor Terry McAuliffe would like to congratulate the recipients of this year’s Governor’s Green Fleet Awards.