New tool to decarbonise heavy road fleet
Anew tool has been launched by Ara Ake, formerly known as the National New Energy Development Centre, in a bid to help long-distance heavy freight companies better understand the options for decarbonising their road fleet.
The free tool takes a total cost of ownership approach to calculating the cost of road freight movements. “This means rather than just looking at the upfront cost of buying different types of vehicles, it estimates the relative costs of using different vehicles powered by different fuels for a given freight trip, taking into account other costs such as labour, carbon dioxide emissions and road user charge costs,” said Ara Ake chief executive, Cristiano Marantes.
New Zealand’s heavy truck fleet contributes 27% of all transport emissions but accounts for only 7% of total annual travel.
Marantes said this concentration of emissions into a relatively small amount of total travel highlighted a “critical need” to find ways to decarbonise heavy-freight movements.
“The TCO comparison tool looks at trips carried out by vehicles powered by green and blue hydrogen, battery electric vehicles, drop-in and conventional biodiesels, and standard diesel internal combustion engine vehicles,” he said.
“The tool comes with a set of inbuilt assumptions about various factors, such as the cost of electricity, vehicle capital costs, the cost of various fuels, and road user charges,” he said.
“It also incorporates typical data on average daily heavyfreight trips provided by EROAD, including information on average daily kilometres travelled, average number and length of stops, and average speed.”
In addition, it allows users to run their own scenarios and input their own data, enabling it to incorporate commercially sensitive data not yet in the public domain.
“By making their scenarios fully customisable, users can also make decisions based on what they know and expect to be true, such as price paths for carbon over time.”
The tool is available for anyone to download and use free of charge and is accompanied by a user guide.