Aiming to reduce transport CO2 emissions, Taupõ's Miraka dairy company introduces hydrogen-diesel powered milk tanker

Dairy farmers in the Taupō area look set to have their milk collected by a new dual-fuel tanker that's powered by hydrogen as well as diesel.

It's a Volvo tanker, with a 522 kilowatt engine, operated by Måori-owned Miraka at Mokai, northwest of Taupõ.

Able to haul 58 tonnes, the Volvo tanker will cover around 165,000 kilometres a year collecting milk, Miraka said.

It needs two hydrogen refills a day. Volvo's heavy goods vehicles that run on green hydrogen are classified as Net Zero for CO2 if they use renewable hydro-treated vegetable oil (HVO) as the ignition fuel.

Miraka's chairman Bruce Scott said the hydrogen dual-fuel tanker is designed to reduce CO2 emissions by around 35% per vehicle, benefiting the taiao, the environment and the community.

The partners in the hydrogen project are freight company Central Transport and Halcyon Power; the former is the exclusive supplier of milk tankers to Miraka, with 80 vehicles in its fleet.

Halcyon Power, meanwhile, is a joint venture between Tűaropaki Trust and Obayashi Corporation in Japan, as the country's first commercial scale green hydrogen plant, adjacent to Miraka's dairy plant. It opened in 2021, and the partners have since then launched another facility in Wiri this year.

Green hydrogen is produced through electrolysis of water, using renewable electricity. A number of projects have sprung up in New Zealand over the past years, to produce and use the low-emission fuel, according to the NZ Hydrogen Council.

Source: NZ Hydrogen Council

Heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) account for around a quarter of all road transport emissions in New Zealand, and the government launched the Green Freight project in 2019 to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases the sector produces.

Electricity, biofuels and green hydrogen are under consideration as power sources for freight trucks, to reduce GHG emissions. In New Zealand, Hyundai has delivered a hydrogen fuel cell-electric truck for NZ Post, with 180 kW output and a 400 kilometre range.

Miraka lays claim to being the first dairy processor to use renewable geothermal energy, through Tűaropaki Trust's Mokai Power Station.