What a great time it is for the future of New Zealand’s road transport industry. Last week, Dave McCoid attended the opening of the Wareing Group’s multi-modal Fairfield Freight Hub facility, and also wrote about numerous other developments from different parts of the industry that have made the news recently in his editorial last Friday.
This week, I’m delighted to continue the theme of positivity. No doubt you’d be too – it makes for a welcome break from the monotony of politics and infrastructure!
Now, regardless of your opinions and preconceptions of hydrogen as a fuel, stick with me here. This is all significant.
In the space of as many days, two green hydrogen entities opened their heavy-vehicle hydrogen refuelling stations – Halcyon, located at Coregas NZ’s Manukau site, and Hiringa Energy, which held the launch of its nationwide hydrogen refuelling network at the Waitomo Wiri site.
For both entities, it’s the realisation of an incredible amount of hard work and dedication to the cause. Regular readers to the magazine will be familiar with Hiringa and its plan to launch a network of green hydrogen refuelling stations in partnership with Waitomo, and make Hyzon hydrogen fuel-cell electric trucks available in partnership with TR Group. “Chicken and egg” was a phrase bandied about at the event, and now that the refuelling component of the puzzle is underway, we’ve been assured the vehicles won’t be far behind.
The opening of Hiringa’s Waitomo Wiri station, as well as one in Palmerston North, one in Te Rapa, and a fourth to come near Tauriko, has been more than a decade in the making. While we missed the Halcyon launch event, we had a tour of the Wiri site – where the hydrogen is produced, stored and dispensed – and it’s easy to understand why … as Hiringa CEO Andrew Clennett said, this is the birth of an entire industry.
So what does a couple of hydrogen refuelling stations mean for the transport industry? Well, not a lot immediately. Yes, NZ Post has been trialling a Hyundai Xcient FCEV over the past 18 months or so; there are some hydrogen fuel cell buses beginning to appear; and those 20-odd Hyzon FCEVs will begin to find their way into some forward-thinking fleets. And no doubt more vehicles will enter the fray from these entities and others over the years.
What the industry needs to do now is learn about the technology during these early phases. Learn about hydrogen as an energy source, visit the fuelling stations, watch these vehicles very carefully when they enter operation, see if it’s all viable for your own operations. Judging by our Facebook post following the launch event, there are many opinions out there. Ignore them – speak to the engineers who have dedicated the better part of a decade to it all, or at least read what they’ve got to tell us.
Do I believe hydrogen will win out in the ‘future energies’ race? No; to pin all hope on one alternative would be foolish. But I do believe strongly that it’ll be an important part of the future energy mix – one that will still include diesel, the importance of which may diminish, but not disappear – and that now is the time to start understanding what that future energy mix may be.
Not tomorrow, probably not next year, but given the rate of progression, definitely sooner than many will expect it.
Exciting times!
Take care out there,
Gavin Myers
Editor
