The Sunshine Coast has a unique connection to Australia’s first hydrogen powered buses, as a husband-and-wife team steer towards a net zero emissions target.
Michael and Rachael Baulch from Sunshine Beach will begin converting a fleet of 120 buses from diesel powered to hydrogen fuel cell electric buses from 2022.
The announcement comes as the COP26 climate summit is underway in Glasgow, where the Queen has urged world leaders to “achieve true statesmanship” and create a “safer, stabler future” for the planet.
The Baulch’s own Emerald Coaches, a private passenger operator across Emerald and Mackay, and commute between their Sunshine Coast home and regional Queensland.
Having worked closely with other renewable developments in Western Australia over the past six years, Mr Baulch told Sunshine Coast News he began looking into hydrogen opportunities for the transport industry.
“As part of that, we became interested in hydrogen and started investigating what opportunities there were to use renewable energy to power hydrogen production,” he said.
“It’s come a long way since then and hydrogen is seen as a bit of a buzz word in the renewable sector.
“When we looked at it specific to our operation, we thought it was a good idea to get to zero emissions and we developed our emissions zero document, which is not just about converting our fleet to zero emissions but training our own people and people within our industry.”
Currently its fleet of diesel busses use more than one million litres of fuel every year, producing 3100 tonnes of greenhouse emissions.
Under Emerald Coaches’ e-Mission zero project, the entire fleet will produce net zero emissions by 2040, 10 years ahead of the federal government’s emissions target.
“We think from a business point of view, that the phasing out of diesel vehicles will happen sooner than we think,” Mr Baulch said.
“Most car manufacturers are committing to zero emissions vehicles past 2025 and we think that is going to flow through fairly quickly to the heavy vehicles.
“We do not want to buy diesel vehicles now that will only last 10 years, we want to make the change to zero emission earlier and be a leader.”
Mr Baulch said green hydrogen would be produced, with rainwater captured onsite with a renewable powered electrolyser to generate the hydrogen.
“Australia’s transport industry is one of the most energy intensive in the world,” he said.
“We believe renewable hydrogen is the future of the transport industry.
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“It’s a natural gas that is extracted from water making it a completely clean and sustainable fuel source.
“The only thing to come out of the exhaust is water.”
As part of the $100m project, the first two vehicles are planned to be in use for 2022.
The Baulch’s hope their work would lead the way for other companies within the transport sector to follow suit.
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“By leading the way and being the first to commit to zero emissions, we are hoping to have a positive impact on our community and our team and encourage other business sectors to consider doing things differently,” Ms Baulch said.
“We could sit on our hands and wait for someone to do it, but if you want to see some change, sometimes you’ve got to be the change.”
Hydrogen is considered green if the production process is powered by a renewable energy source. Emerald Coaches’ onsite, closed loop system will provide complete fuel security, price stability and will eliminate the need to transport hydrogen from another facility.
With about 90 per cent of fuels used in Australian derived from oil sourced from overseas, locally produced green hydrogen will help offset the risk of fuel disruption and price instability.
