Renewable fuel for road transport

The Renewable Methane for Transport and Mobility project, RMTM for short, which was launched in 2014, was completed in spring 2018. As part of the project, the carbon flows in Switzerland were investigated and thus possible carbon sources for power-to-gas plants were elicited. The aim was to investigate the potential of renewable methane as a substitute for fossil fuel in road transport. Together with the reduction of private motorised transport and the partial switch to e-mobility, this can make a valuable contribution to achieving climate targets. Due to the increased use of renewable electricity sources, fluctuations in the electricity grid are constantly increasing. Power-to-gas technology is able to compensate for these and is also low in CO2. Due to its flexibility, the process is particularly suitable for converting excess electricity from renewable energy sources into storable methane in the summer.

A team of researchers from the Institute of Energy Technology IET at the Rapperswil University of Applied Sciences investigated the possibilities of contributing by using synthetic natural gas. Also involved in the project were EPFL, the St. Gallen public utility company, the University of St. Gallen and ZHAW. Read our publication on the results of the project here:

Project results

Newspaper article in Aqua & Gas N°9 | 2018 (in german)