Sizeable hydrogen transport fleet needed to ensure refueling and distribution network economic

Wednesday, 20 March 2019

Take a closer look at Hyundai's new hydrogen-powered SUV, the Nexo.

Building up a sizeable fleet of hydrogen-powered vehicles will be necessary if any planned hydrogen refuelling stations are to be cost efficient, the chief executive of a Taranaki company investing millions of dollars in hydrogen fuel production says.

Hiringa Energy is finalising sites to build three refuelling stations in the North Island by 2021 at an estimated cost of $30million.

The sites will ideally be close to industrial warehousing, truck stops, ports and airports where there is high commercial transport activity, such as trucks, buses and forklifts, ready to use hydrogen fuel.

Hiringa Energy chief executive Andrew Clennett says hydrogen refuelling stations need to be cost efficient.

Bell Block, an industrial area north of New Plymouth, is being considered by the company as a suitable site for a refuelling station in Taranaki.

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Hiringa Energy, with New Plymouth District Council, and regional development agency, Venture Taranaki, last week launched a 68-page blueprint, titled H2 Taranaki Roadmap, on how hydrogen fuel can be produced and used in transport as a future replacement of fossil fuels.

The document proposed building on Taranaki's established petrochemical infrastructure and expertise to produce and supply hydrogen to transport operators in and outside the region to reduce greenhouse emissions.

Hiringa Energy chief executive Andrew Clennett said large numbers of forklifts used in industrial warehouses was a good starting point to grow demand for hydrogen fuel.

'The refuelling stations we are proposing will need to be running to a full commercial capacity,' he said.

'We don't want to create facilities which are uneconomic.'

Hiringa Energy last year received $950,000 grant from the Provincial Growth Fund to set up infrastructure for hydrogen fuel production and use in Taranaki.

Investment in the refuelling stations was likely to be a combination of private and public, Clennett said.

Clennett said hydrogen production was rapidly increasing in other countries as costs were falling.

Hiringa Energy had other projects under way including using renewable energy to produce hydrogen and ammonia.

Environmental activist group, Climate Justice Taranaki,said much of the technology Hiringa Energy was proposing was 'fanciful' and 'unproven'.