Rubbish trucks, B-doubles to fill up with Tamworth hydrogen in Global Gateway Park plan

A business consortium has submitted plans to use hydrogen fuel generated by Tamworth solar energy to gas a refuelling station to be built in the city's Global Gateway Park.

Business development manager for clean hydrogen Chris Doleman, from gas company BOC, said the facility is initially intended to serve heavy vehicles like garbage trucks.

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But the plan is to eventually serve as a hub as part for long-range hydrogen-powered trucks, and even trains, he said.

The technology is growing into maturity and hydrogen is approaching "diesel parity", even without government subsidies, he said.

He joked that achieving marketability had recently got a lot easier.

"We think we can hit diesel parity in the pre-Russian world at sort of $10.50 from the nozzle [per kilo], effectively, if we can get all the costs right," he said.

"That's basically diesel parity."

Local green energy firm Wynergy will build the solar panels needed to generate the renewable energy required to split hydrogen from water.

The company has expressed interest in providing a green micro grid for the entire industrial estate. They also want help from council assessing the business prospects of using some of the energy to produce hydrogen for fuel.

Wynergy director Ben Wynn said they would have a major comparative advantage by getting access to renewable energy behind the metre at the Global Gateway Park site.

"Tamworth is a fantastic location to set this type of infrastructure up," he said.

"From a cheap solar point of view we've got pretty good elevation and greater radiance as a result.

"We've got lots of sunshine, we're a little bit higher up in the air and we don't have as much cloud cover as the New England does.

"And then the other probably even bigger comparative advantage we have, is our proximity to all of the industry here."

Mr Doleman said Tamworth is a significant trucking hub, and on the edge of a Renewable Energy Zone, so it would make sense to establish the technology here, first.

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"There's a really good opportunity to create a heavy-vehicle piece of infrastructure that basically goes from Brisbane through Tamworth to Sydney and further to Victoria," he said.

"This is potentially part of that network."

The facility would require an electrolysis process to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen using energy. Hydrogen would then be compressed into fuel.

The business consortium consists of BOC gas, French waste company Veolia, local green power company Wynergy, the construction company Sevengen, and Hygrid Energy.

The companies jointly submitted an expression of interest for a plot in the city's Global Gateway Park. The plan will go to councillors for sign-off.

Several major trucking companies, including Nikola, Hyundai, and Iveco are planning to put hydrogen-fueled trucks on the road by as early as 2023.

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