Helping Fleets Perform Their Best in All Conditions
From high-tech fuel testing to reliable advice, Chevron Renewable Energy Group's Technical Services team supports customers (and non-customers) to keep them running.
If you’ve ever run into fuel-related issues or questions about how your fleet will operate with different blends of lower carbon fuels, you know how important it is to get a helpful answer from trusted experts quickly.
To ease your transition to biofuels, Chevron Renewable Energy Group offers ongoing world-class technical support via online and in-person resources known as our Technical Services team.
Success Begins with Testing
Based in Ames, Iowa, and Amsterdam, the Technical Services team are 18 laboratory technicians, chemists and engineers who lead quality efforts including performing many fuel tests, for customers and non-customers alike, and often at no charge.
“We want to make sure anyone who is currently, or may soon be, using biofuels has a good experience with them,” says Chevron Renewable Energy Group’s Quality Assurance Manager Kelsey Erickson. “We provide the same fuel testing and technical support to non-customers as we do with customers, in order to support the biomass-based diesel market.”
Types of testing available includes:
- Cold Soak Filtration, Cold Soak Filter Blocking Tendency, Cold Filter Plugging Point (CFPP) and Cloud Point testing to determine cold weather properties
- Elemental analysis, such as Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) testing, to identify and quantify elements other than carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, such as sulfur and metals
- Gas Chromatography (GC), GC-Mass Spectrometry (GCMS) and GC Headspace testing to identify and analyze different substances in a liquid sample
- Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) to determine the presence of a wide variety of molecules and materials in liquid and solid samples
- Viscosity, density, flash point and energy content testing
High-Tech = High Quality
Chevron Renewable Energy Group's Ames headquarters hosts a 4,000 square foot research center with state-of-the-art technology including lab-scale reactors, mixers, distillation and other separation units, filtration units and fermenters.
All Chevron Renewable Energy Group biorefineries have on-site labs to ensure the quality of the incoming and outgoing materials by testing feedstocks and chemicals, in-process samples, and finished fuel and co-products. Erickson says the team also provides technical advice on storing, handling and blending fuel. Chevron Renewable Energy Group’s experts and high-tech facilities help customers perform at their best every day.
“We make sure customers get the guidance they need on the fuel properties that are specific to their operations,” Erickson says.
Proof is in the Performance
Even the Iowa Department of Transportation relies on Chevron Renewable Energy Group’s Technical Services team for fuel-related help. Read how Chevron Renewable Energy Group made an important discovery that saved major headaches for the Iowa DOT’s snow removal team.
Have fuel-related questions for the Chevron Renewable Energy Group Technical Services team? Send us your questions.