Hydrogen powered trucks could play a key role as the Government looks to lower emissions from heavy transport. Mark Jennings reports.
Three years ago Hyundai NZ brought the first hydrogen powered car to New Zealand – the Nexo - but the only place it could refuel was the company’s own small plant out the back of its head office in Mt Wellington.
The car was unlikely to drive south of the Bombays. While it pointed to the future, its role was primarily a PR one – something new for the grizzled group of motoring journalists to play with and write about.
Hyundai NZ General Manager Andy Sinclair described the Nexo’s importation as putting the “egg before the chicken”, but the arrival a few weeks ago of the first XCIENT showed the company is serious about the role it thinks hydrogen will play in our heavy transport sector.
Four more of the hydrogen powered trucks will follow as the locally owned distributor looks to partner a freight company in a proof-of-performance trial.
The gleaming white behemoth glided almost silently around the yard at Mt Wellington as Hyundai NZ showed it off to transport companies, journalists and politicians.
The political interest was palpable. Transport minister Michael Wood gave up a haircut appointment (badly needed by his own admission) to be the keynote speaker at the morning session which was also attended by several National MP’s. A video of Wood’s speech, in which he stressed the Government’s commitment to hydrogen as a fuel was replayed to the transport industry execs, ACT MPs, Labour MPs and journalists who attended the afternoon session.
Hydrogen, particularly green hydrogen, presents an attractive opportunity for politicians and and the heavy transport industry to make a quick impact on carbon emissions. It is a ‘here and now’ solution to a major problem.
According to Sinclair, heavy trucks make up 4 percent of our transport fleet but produce 25 percent of its emissions.
Agriculture is the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide producing 48 percent of our total emissions but the transport sector is second with 42 percent.
Wood says transport will need to reduce its emissions by 41 percent before 2035 if New Zealand is to decarbonise its economy by 2050.
“This is quite simply one of the top priorities we (Government) have....out of all the sectors transport has had the worst trajectory over the last 30 years, our emissions have increased by about 90 percent.
“Hydrogen is going to be a critical part of the clean energy mix alongside EVs and biofuels in that bigger picture of how we decarbonise the system.”
This isn’t just hot air from Wood. The Government is investing real money into the hydrogen economy. It’s given Taranaki-based Hiringa Energy a $16 million loan to help it build hydrogen refuelling stations in the North Island. Hiringa, a private company backed by Japan’s Mitsui and Stephen Tindall’s K1W1 fund, is spending $50m on four stations.
The Government has provided an additional grant of $6 million to truck leasing and rental company TR Group. This will subsidise the cost of 20 trucks to be purchased from US hydrogen truck manufacturer Hyzon. The 20 trucks are due to arrive here next year, be owned by TR Group and leased to freight companies.
Hyundai NZ received $500,000 of Government money to lower the cost of the five trucks it is bringing from Korea. New Zealand is only the third country outside Korea and Switzerland to get its hands on the XCIENT. The trucks use fuel cells which convert hydrogen to electricity that drives an electric motor. They are commonly referred to as FCEV’s.
Like the Hyzon trucks, the XCIENTs will use Hiringa’s refuelling stations planned for South Auckland, Tauranga, Hamilton (the so called golden triangle) and Palmerston North.
Ryan McDonald, Hiringa’s head of new business, says the hydrogen will be made in situ at the four stations and it will be ‘green’.
“We plan to close-couple the stations directly to a renewable source. We have the technology to make sure the electrons going in are green. If the grid starts to get ‘dirty’ (if high demand means generation from non-renewables is brought on-line) we can turn the electrolysers off in about three seconds.
Hyundai NZ’s Sinclair says Switzerland has blazed a path this country can follow.
The South Korean manufacturer joined forces with a consortium of 25 Swiss companies to operate 45 XCIENT FCEVs delivering freight throughout the compact European country. After 11 months of operation the fleet saved more than 631 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
Switzerland has eight hydrogen refuelling stations running down the centre of the country and the green hydrogen is produced at a run of river hydroelectric power station in the north-west.
Hyundai will deliver another 150 trucks to the Swiss consortium in 2022 and is aiming to have 1600 on the road by 2025.
The key to the commercial viability of operating FCEVs in Switzerland lies with the Heavy Goods Vehicle tax which is waived for trucks with zero emissions. Trade publications in Switzerland suggest this saves a substantial amount of money and allows Hyundai to balance out the capital cost of the high-tech trucks, putting them on a par with diesel.
Companies wanting to improve their ‘green’ credentials, like supermarket chains and McDonalds have been quick to embrace the new trucks.
FCEV's in New Zealand will also be exempt from road user charges and Hiringa’s McDonald predicts no other Government support will be needed after 2026-27.
“We are basing this on cost of the trucks declining, the cost of hydrogen declining, and the cost of diesel heading upwards.
“Battery manufacturers went through a rapid learning curve to lower the weight and increase the range (of EVs) and hydrogen is going through a similar curve now. Fuel cells are going to be more efficient and there will be a huge amount of efficiency coming in the manufacturing process.”
Sinclair says FCEVs will have significant advantages over battery powered trucks in the long-haul freight sector.
“Batteries in an electric truck can be half the weight of a fully loaded vehicle, whereas hydrogen trucks are similar weight to diesels. The XCIENT has a range of 400km and a refuelling time of between 8 and 20 minutes (depending on type of truck and refuelling system). This means its productivity is very good and being an FCEV there is also no engine vibration, so maintenance will be low.
“We anticipate saving 50 tonnes of CO2 per 80,000km.”
Hiringa’s McDonald says trucks on line haul between Auckland and Wellington daily do between 300,000 and 350,000km per year, use 150,000 to 175,000 litres of diesel and emit 400-470 tonnes of C02 per year.
“To provide a sense of scale, a Hilux doing 15,000km per year is going to emit 4 tonnes per year of CO2, so a single hydrogen truck will have the same impact as removing 100 Hiluxs from the roads or putting 150 Teslas on the road. With 20 fuel cell trucks on the road next year you can see that it is shifting the dial immediately when it comes to transport emissions.”
Hiringa plans to extend its network of refuelling stations to the South Island in 2023 and have 24 in operation through the country by 2026.
“New Zealand will be one of the first countries to have freight network (running on hydrogen) but it is important that we do lead. If we want access to the trucks, with our small market down at the bottom of the world, we need to be ahead of the rest of the world.
“Sorry if I’m on my soap box here but the large new diesel trucks we import will typically be in circulation for 17 years (on average), so any delay in investment in hydrogen now just delays our ability to scale and hence kicks the emissions can down the road,” says McDonald.
He is hardly exaggerating the looming competition. The European Union wants to become the world leader in hydrogen technology as it looks to reduce CO2 emissions by more than 50 percent before 2030.
In Germany, energy commentators are describing green hydrogen as the “crude oil of tomorrow.”
The country is building or retrofitting 1800 km of pipelines for hydrogen distribution and has 130 million cubic metres of storage capacity under construction.
Our Government outlined its vision for hydrogen in 2019 and has been taking submissions on the plan. Michael Wood told the audience at the Hyundai launch Labour would deliver “a very clear road map on the nationwide infrastructure that we need” in 2022.
