Compressed Natural Gas as an Alternative Vehicular Fuel in Tanzania: Implementation, Barriers, and Prospects

Abstract

This paper presents the implementation of natural gas vehicles (NGVs) in Tanzania’s road transportation sector. The peculiarity of this analysis is the evaluation of the technical and economic performance of the converted gasoline and diesel engines to use compressed natural gas (CNG) as the cleanest-burning hydrocarbon. The technical performance involved vehicle mileage (MiCNG), fuel consumption (Fcons), speed drop, engine fuel enhancement (Fenh), and fuel saving, while the economic performance involved conversion cost (Cc), fuel cost saving (FCsaving), and payback (PB). Considering the conversion of gasoline vehicles, the MiCNG could reach an average of 100 to 500 km per filling, depending on the CNG cylinder size. The Fenh and fuel saving were ranging between 1.9 and 3.9 and 71 and 78%. With a proportion of 30:70 diesel-CNG fuel, the heavy-duty truck with 180 kg of CNG could reach 1300 km, saving about 440 L, which is 78.6% per roundtrip, while the medium passenger car with 15 kg of CNG could reach 350 km, presenting a fuel saving of about 75%. From an economic point of view, gasoline retrofitted NGVs cost about 50 to 200 TZS/km, yielding a fuel cost saving of up to 79% and starting to pay off between 2 and 7 months or 10,000 and 40,000 km, depending on the engine capacity. Considering dual fuel, the heavy-duty truck consumes about 496 TZS/km, saving about 62.3% of diesel fuel and starting to pay off after 2.5 months or 29,304 km. To conclude, NGV technologies have been successfully implemented in Tanzania’s road transportation sector, presenting significant fuel savings and reducing reliance on imported oil. While taking measures, this study paves a way for Tanzania and other sub-Saharan countries to promote NGV growth.