The 9th April 2025 Council meeting considered a report on upgrading the electrical capacity of the Hadfield Operations Centre.

The Importance of this is that Depot electrical upgrade enables heavy vehicle fleet electrification, and thus reduction in transport emissions. This is an important contract that will enable electrical operations upgrade, and electrification of heavy vehicle fleet.  It will cost nearly $780,000.

The Council report “Notes the need for an increase in electrical capacity at the Hadfield Operations Centre (also known as 5 Walter Street, Hadfield) by 3,000kVA (or 3 MW), to support electrification of the site and installation of infrastructure necessary for the transition of Council fleet to zero emissions vehicles.”

“The masterplan aims to modernise and optimise the operations centre. In particular, it responds to the need to improve stormwater drainage and waste stockpiles, flagged by the Environment Protection Authority (EPA). The masterplan stakeholder consultation report lists electrical capacity expansion as a high priority, and the two transformer kiosks are present in the draft layouts. A technical study was prepared in 2022 to understand what electrical capacity would be needed at the Hadfield Operations Centre if Council’s fleet and facilities were electrified by 2030.”

“To enable the planned increase in electric vehicles (EVs) and/or zero emissions vehicle as well as electrification of the Operations Centre, the technical study outlines the need for an overall electrical expansion of 3,000kVA. This will be achieved by installing two transformers (one 2,000kVA and a second 1,000kVA), totalling 3,000kVA. Two transformers are necessary to reduce the costs of trenching and cabling from the sub-boards to the Transformer.”

It is worth noting Council has made substantial progress in reducing operational emissions in their vehicle fleet, but mostly so far with the light vehicle fleet with zero emission cars and e-bikes. But they are now starting to purchase electric trucks, ride-on mowers and street sweepers.

Converting fleet to zero emissions

“Council has committed to convert its fleet to zero emission vehicles, where available vehicle models meet our operational needs. This is laid out in Council’s Fleet Selection Policy (endorsed September 2024).

“Currently Council’s fleet is responsible for 2,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases, or almost one third of our 2023/24 carbon emissions (28 per cent due to diesel consumption, 1 per cent due to unleaded). The vast majority of Council’s fleet emissions are due to vehicles based at the Hadfield Operations Centre.

“Electrification is the favoured approach to converting fleet to zero emissions vehicles. Council has made excellent progress in electrifying our light fleet, and Merri-bek currently runs one of the largest electric vehicle (EV) light fleets in the country (30 EVs and 7 e-bikes). Council’s light EV fleet is significantly larger than those of comparable councils (Yarra, Hume, Banyule, Darebin, City of Port Phillip).

“Our heavy electric fleet, however, is smaller than those of City of Port Phillip, Stonnington, Yarra, Banyule or Whitehorse. Council’s light fleet is currently responsible for 1.3 per cent of our corporate carbon footprint, while heavy fleet accounts for 32 per cent.

“Council has taken initial steps to reduce emissions from heavy fleet. An electric ride-on mower has been purchased, and Fleet has placed orders for two electric trucks and an electric streetsweeper.”

“Council continues to explore the feasibility of hydrogen waste vehicles. Should hydrogen be generated on-site, this would require high site electrical capacity”

Council meeting date: 9 April 2025

Is Hydrogen still an option for decarbonising Council’s vehicle fleet?

A question on notice was asked about the feasibility of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles:

Question 1: 7.16 Upgrading electrical capacity at Hadfield Operations Centre.

This enables heavy fleet electrification and reduction of Council transport emissions. I appreciate Council Officer detail in this report.

While I understand Council is keeping open the possibility for hydrogen as part of heavy vehicle transport fuel mix, the reality is that this would be a very inefficient use of hydrogen, as per Michael Liebreich’s Hydrogen Ladder assessment. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hydrogen-ladder-version-50-michael-liebreich/

Question: Where does Council stand regarding heavy vehicle electrification as against hydrogen fuel cells? Are there more options for heavy electric vehicles on the market or coming on the market for Council to explore?

Here is Council’s response from Anita Curnow, Director of City Infrastructure, in which they are still keeping open the possibility of hydrogen fuel cell use for the heavy vehicle fleet:

Thank you for your interest in community engagement and public participation. The answers to your questions are set out below.

Answer to Question 1
Council’s position is that both battery and fuel cell electric vehicles play a role in a zero emission fleet. Council does have a position to ultimately eliminate carbon emissions from its operations. Any option that is able to move us towards that goal is worthy of consideration.

Council expects that a well-balanced and resource responsible path to a zero-emissions transport future will likely see battery electric vehicles fill much of the personal transport space. It is not yet clear whether these or fuel cell electric vehicles will occupy the heavy vehicle space on a path to a zero-emissions transport future.

Answer to Question 2
As such, Council has a watching brief on electric, hydrogen and any other emerging zero emission technology. We have placed orders for some electric-powered items of plant and our process for purchasing new fleet and plant includes consideration of zero emissions options and where nosuitable option is available an exemption process.

So hydrogen fuel cell trucks (such as for waste collection) are still on the table. While the use case for them is perhaps receeding. We’ll see in the next few years, but I think the advances in Battery Electric in heavy vehicles will make the choice obvious in coming years. Either way, increasing the electrical capacity of the Hadfield Council depot is required.

Heavy Vehicle electrification

A recent Carbon Tracker report on electrification of heavy vehicles says:

“Growth in the global market for battery electrification of trucks is 6-8 years behind that for cars and vans, but this gap could quickly diminish if certain conditions are met including 1) vehicle cost parity/ innovative financing solutions 2) confidence in electric range and utilisation 3) suitable charging infrastructure and power requirements.”

Ben Scott, head of automotive and report author, said: “Competitors are here now, and the incumbents don’t have time on their hands. They need to react quickly by developing a re-fleeting strategy and effectively transitioning their vehicle production asset base to produce EVs or face obsolescence.”

This should mean more options for Merri-bek Council over the next 5-6 years to purchase electric heavy vehicles. Upgrade of the electrical capacity of the Hadfield depot ensures it is ready to re-charge these vehicles.

References

Email Response from Merri-bek Council for a Question submitted to April Council Meeting.
Ben Scott, Carbon Tracker, 27 February 2025, Re-Fleeting Revolution: Delivering Financial Returns in the Electric Heavy Duty Vehicle Transition, https://carbontracker.org/reports/re-fleeting-revolution-delivering-financial-returns-in-the-electric-heavy-duty-vehicle-transition/