City commissioners will hear a first reading of the legislation at today’s meeting and will vote on the action at the Jan. 21 meeting.
The $75,200 bid from New Hudson, Mich.-based ICOM North America was the lone bid received for the project, according to public documents.
The vehicles being converted are lighter duty, higher-mileage vehicles, including one police cruiser, said city service director Chris Moore.
“If things work like we anticipate, that would definitely give the most bang for the buck,” Moore said.
The city has more than 300 vehicles in its fleet and will use the 10 propane-converted vehicles to see if any more could be converted in the future. If the project works as planned, they may seek more grant funding for conversions, Moore said.
The grant was approved through the Springfield-Clark County Transportation Coordinating Committee from the Ohio Department of Transportation. ODOT will pay approximately 80 percent of the project, while the city will pay 20 percent.
The kits will be paid for through various funds, meaning each department will pay for the kits from their budget.
They’re hoping to have the conversions completed in February and may install the propane filling station once the weather breaks, Moore said.
“We’re very excited,” Moore said. “As soon as we get some reasonable weather, we’ll have the filling station in place.”
The project was initially expected to cost about $99,000 for the 12 conversion kits and $50,000 for the filling station.
The project initially called for 12 vehicles to be converted, but two street sweepers could not be properly converted because they’re too unique, Moore said.
“The vendor didn’t have specifically what we needed, so we’re not going to be doing those,” Moore said.
Propane conversion kits for different vehicles are frequently being certified by the Environmental Protection Agency, but it’s a matter of them being profitable for the vendors, Moore said. The cost for a certification for a specific vehicle is about $50,000, Moore said.
“They need to make sure there’s a big enough market out there for them to recoup their initial investment,” Moore said.
Also, the propane filling station cost about $27,000, well under its initial estimate.
After the conversion, the vehicles will save a minimum of $800 per year, even at their worst level of efficiency — meaning the city will save approximately $8,000 and possibly more, Moore said. The average cost savings is approximately $1,400 per year.
The current cost of wholesale propane is approximately $1.25 per gallon.
The other vehicles being converted include a police supervisor vehicle, service center supervisor vehicles, service center pick-up trucks, a service truck for both the water and sewer departments, as well as police and fire vans.
“There’s a variety of vehicles with a variety of different uses and engine types,” Moore said. “We wanted to spread it around so we can learn first-hand about what works best for our operations.”
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