The Gas Company has for many years focused on bringing the California farmer as much energy value as possible. Through this effort, SoCalGas offers various services and incentives for customers to maintain, upgrade or replace their water pumping gas engines to operate as efficiently as possible.
Energy Costs
The Gas Company has continuously made efforts to offer gas rates for water pumping customers to be as cost effective as possible. In 1992, for instance, The Gas Company introduced a special core tariff - G-EN Rate Schedule - to serve as an energy rate alternative for smaller agricultural water pumping consumers. More recently, The Gas Company won approval from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to allow these same customers to "elect" their core rates so they can now cost-compare between the all applicable core rate schedules such as the G-10 rate. Larger agricultural water pumping customers also have flexibility in rate selection. For a complete overview of the available tariffs for both core and noncore agricultural customers, visit The Gas Company’s Rate Tariff Book page.
Other pertinent web pages that will be of interest:
Carl Moyer Program: Diesel Ag Engine Replacement
Funding may be available to help your customers (or potential customers) convert their diesel agricultural engines to natural gas. The Carl Moyer Program is a state-wide program designed to provide incentives for reduction of NOx emissions from heavy-duty diesel engines. Acceptable projects must have a cost-effectiveness of $12,000/ton of NOx reduced or better (see below for how to calculate cost effectiveness). While the main focus of the program is toward transportation-related sources (trucks, forklifts, etc.), replacement of diesel engines used for agricultural water pumping is also an approved project category. Final guidelines are now being developed, to be available in May. Funding will be available starting in June and will probably go quickly. Now is the time to start working with potential customers so they are ready to apply for funding as soon as it is available.
Who can qualify?
All of the air districts within The Gas Company territory have been allocated funding. For agricultural-related projects, the most likely prospects will be in San Joaquin Valley, along the coast, and in Mojave Desert/Antelope Valley areas.
The program will be administered by local air districts along with the California Air Resources Board (CARB). Specific procedures may vary from district to district, but general guidelines developed by CARB are shown below. Acceptable projects must meet the following criteria:
- Cost-effectiveness of $12,000/ton NOx reduced or better
- Engine must be 50 HP or greater
- Replacement engines must certify to a NOx level of 30% below uncontrolled baseline emissions
- NOx emission reductions must not be required by any other regulation or legally-binding document
- Funded projects must operate for at least five years and must be registered with the local air district throughout this period
- Specific criteria for natural gas engine replacements of diesel are still in development
A complete copy of the draft guidelines developed by CARB is available for viewing or download at:
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