Fuel supplier Piedmont Natural Gas hopes to expand compressed natural gas (CNG) adoption with lowered fuel prices and contracts with government and commercial fleets in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

Piedmont has been able to lower the price of its CNG by about 50 cents per gasoline-gallon equivalent due to a federal tax credit to incentivize the construction of CNG refueling stations, 

The fuel supplier received approval from state regulators in North Carolina and South Carolina earlier this year to lower its prices, and did the same in Tennessee, where public CNG prices are unregulated. Currently, CNG from Piedmont costs $1.46 per gasoline-gallon equivalent in North Carolina and $1.37 in South Carolina.

Piedmont was recently awarded a contract from the City of Charlotte, N.C., to install a CNG station at the city's existing facility to fuel its refuse trucks. The company is also supplying CNG to private refueling stations for two national waste haulers. In addition, Piedmont has started construction on its 11th public CNG refueling station in Hickory, N.C.

Piedmont sold, delivered, or used approximately 5 million gasoline-gallon equivalents in the past year. About a third of the company's corporate fleet runs on CNG, according to the company.