Keeping it clean in race to top
Smart firms are using electric vehicles.
It’s still very early days for electric vehicles in New Zealand, but the trends are promising in both passenger and commercial sectors.
Last year, the number of EVs on the road grew 2.5 times to 2,430. At this rate, we’ll easily reach the government’s target of 64,000 by 2021.
But the national fleet of passenger and commercial vehicles is approaching 4 million and shows no sign of easing back on its growth rate of around 4 per cent a year. Quite simply, EVs are barely making a dent on the national fleet.
Only huge innovation will work. The goal is big. New Zealand has made only a modest international commitment to reduce its greenhouse gases. But even this is impossible to meet with actual cuts in emissions, because the government is keeping agriculture, which accounts for half our emissions, out of the emissions trading scheme.
As a result, New Zealand will be buying very large volumes of carbon credits on international markets to make up the shortfall. Treasury warns we’re running a large risk of paying a high price.
The best hope for reducing the outflow of money is to make big cuts in emissions in transport and stationary energy. Of similar size in terms of energy use, they are the next biggest emitters after agriculture.
Clean technology is progressing fast for both sectors. In some cases, it is already delivering cheaper energy and greater efficiency, plus other benefits such as less maintenance and more convenience.
Change in stationary energy, though, is largely incremental such as switching from coal to wood waste in industrial boilers and power generation. Fonterra, for example, is the second largest coal burner in the country. But it is running a serious environmental reputation risk by moving so slowly on this issue.
In contrast, fast changing technology in the transport sector offers the potential for big environment and economic gains. To explore this, a number of smart companies have launched ambitious pilot projects on electric vehicles.
Waste Management is using EMOSS, a Dutch company, to convert overseas three new diesel trucks to electric, and then to bring the skills here to convert some more. The fleet of five will be trialled over the next year.
While electric power offers savings such as no road user charges and lower running and servicing costs, it is not yet fully cost-competitive with diesel, says Tom Nickels, Waste Management’s CEO. However, the technology and economic trends are heading quickly in the right direction. The company already has a small fleet of electric cars and light vans.
Foodstuffs is buying a fleet of 28 electric delivery vans for some of its supermarkets, and will make their charging stations available to the public for electric cars.
These are two of 14 projects that recently won small sums from a contestable fund at EECA, the
New Zealand has made only a modest international commitment to reduce its greenhouse gases.
government’s energy and conservation agency.
Companies seeking to explore the opportunities in clean transport and stationary energy will find advice and tools on the www.eecabusiness.govt.nz website. The calculator of vehicle total cost of ownership for example, shows electric cars are already cheaper than petrol or diesel in some circumstances such as high, local mileage.
NZ Bus, a subsidiary of Infratil, is another company with a big, long term strategy on clean energy. It is converting Wellington’s trolley buses to an electric hybrid power train produced by Wrightspeed, a Californian company founded by Ian Wright, a Kiwi engineer. Once it’s proved the concept, it will begin to convert diesel buses. In due course, it hopes never to buy another diesel bus.
In some ways, Tourism Holdings is being the boldest - electric motorhomes capable of travelling 200 km on a charge. It has two projects; building from new, with its first chassis due to land in March or April; and repowering existing campervans.
The company, known for its Maui and Britz brands, says the knowledge it gains from electric, zero emissions vehicles, will help towards its ultimate goal of driverless motorhomes.
Clean energy is more than an urgent environmental necessity. It is a driver of phenomenal innovation in business.