News

News

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• The “Safe, low cost, hydrogen storage materials from NZ resources” grant team including both German and New Zealand researchers met in person at the University of Canterbury, NZ in February 2025 for a very productive day of discussions of progress to date and plans for next steps. The team are pictured below.
• Congratulations to Lekshmi Dinachandran (supervised by Anna Garden and Paul Jerabek) and Alex Haack (supervised by Nigel Lucas and Claudio Pistidda), two of the PhD students on the “Safe, low cost, hydrogen storage materials from NZ resources” grant, on winning prizes for their talks at the 3rd NZ Hydrogen Symposium, NZHS3! Alex and Lekshmi are pictured below 3rd and 4th from the right, respectively.
  
• The New Zealand Hydrogen Aviation Consortium has released a report (available from their website) ‘Launching Green Hydrogen Powered Aviation in Aotearoa New Zealand’ which includes a foreword from He Honoka Hauwai co-leader, Prof Sally Brooker. A video has also been released about this report launch.
  Pictured below at the NZ H2 2 Zero Summit where this report was launched are, L to R: Prof Sally Brooker (He Honoka Hauwai, Otago University), Christopher Boyle (Fabrum), Jean-Christophe Hoguet (Airbus), Claire Waghorn (CIAL), Cathy Clennett (Hiringa), Nick Flack (CIAL), Amy Barrett (FFI), Andrew Clennett (Hiringa). Missing: Jacob Snelgrove (Air New Zealand).
• New Zealand’s Interim Hydrogen Roadmap has been released for consultation, you can find the roadmap document and provide feedback here (9 August 2023).
• Professor Sally Brooker (Otago University) has just returned from a great visit to Germany, which included visiting our co-hosts of He Honoka Hauwai / German-New Zealand Green Hydrogen, at Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon, Geesthacht (near Hamburg), Germany. Photo (left to right): Dr Claudio Pistidda, Dr Julian Jepsen, Prof Matthias Rehahn (Hereon Managing Director), Prof Thomas Klassen (Director of Hereon Institute of Hydrogen Technology and of Institute of Materials Science at Helmut-Schmidt University in Hamburg), Prof Sally Brooker (Otago University, co-leader of He Honoka Hauwai), Dr Klaus Taube, Dr José Bellosta von Colbe, and Dr Paul Jerabek (co-leader of He Honoka Hauwai).
• Check out the video on the hydrogen activities of Dr Tanja Kneiske (Integrated Energy Infrastructure, Fraunhofer IEG, Germany), a member of our German-New Zealand Green Hydrogen / He Honoka Hauwai team and a regular visitor to another member of our team, A/Prof Michael Jack (Energy Management, Otago University, NZ).
• Ia Ara Aotearoa Transporting New Zealand has published an article from David Killick about HWR‘s new dual-fuel hydrogen-diesel heavy truck. As well as interviewing Craig McKenzie, Anthony Jones, and Gareth Wishart from HWR, and getting background on the truck conversion from Transport Repairs’ Mike Webster, David also interviewed He Honoka Hauwai co-leader Prof Sally Brooker (who was invited to the launch by HWR) about the production and use of green hydrogen in NZ. Thanks for the great photos, interview and article, David, and thanks again to HWR for hosting us at the truck’s launch in Invercargill, and giving us another chance to talk with the public about green hydrogen and show them how it’s made.
  Please check out the article in Transport News for this industry-leading step towards lowering transport emissions – for now, until NZ’s hydrogen refuelling station network is established and zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell heavy trucks become viable here (Transporting News May 2023).
• Dr Linda Wright, Chief Executive of the NZ Hydrogen Council and a team member on the Hydrogen Storage Materials grant, contributed to a recent article about the role hydrogen may play in decarbonisation. Please check out the article on Newsroom (17 April 2023).
• HW Richardson have launched their first dual-fuel truck ‘Blue Hydro, the first of its kind in Australasia, which can combust hydrogen along with the diesel for up to a 40% reduction in emissions. In Europe this retrofit technology by CMBTech, which enables combustion of a mixture of hydrogen and diesel, reduces emissions by about 40% with no loss of performance, payload or range. Because the truck can still run 100% diesel it won’t get stranded by the current lack of a hydrogen refuelling station network in NZ. HWR own about 1300 trucks nationwide. They also own the Allied Petroleum refuelling network, and will open their first H2 refuelling station in Gore in September this year. So HWR are addressing both sides of the chicken and egg problem. By early 2024 they will have 10 dual-fuel trucks on the road. Have a look at the articles on 1News (9 April 2023), Stuff (31 March 2023), and the ODT (1 April 2023).
  Two of our team, Michael Bennington and co-leader Prof Sally Brooker, were invited down by HWR Hydrogen to do green hydrogen outreach at the George Begg Festival where the truck was unveiled to the public. A huge thank you to HWR for this opportunity to engage the public about green hydrogen!

  

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• Hydrogen Consortium – for zero-emissions aviation in NZ was launched by Dr Megan Woods (Minister for Energy) in Christchurch and involves 6 companies: Air NZ, Airbus, Christchurch Airport, Fabrum, Hiringa Energy and Fortescue Future Industries (10 February 2023). He Honoka Hauwai co-leader Prof Sally Brooker was honoured to be invited to the media launch. Please check out the announcement video and some of the articles: Christchurch Airport, RNZ, Stuff, Airbus.

  

• Christchurch and Hamburg airports have signed a partnership to work together towards net zero with a focus on green hydrogen. In their press release Hamburg highlighted the roll the Centre played in connecting the two airports:
  

  “Even before Hamburg Airport and Christchurch International Airport decided to enter into a formal partnership, they exchanged information about their environmental activities on a monthly basis. They were networked by the German-New Zealand Centre for Green Hydrogen, Research, Networking and Outreach, based at the University of Otago, New Zealand. It was developed under the co-leadership of Dr. Paul Jerabek (Institute for Hydrogen Technology, Helmholtz Centre Hereon Hamburg, Germany) and Prof. Sally Brooker (University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand). Commenting on the cooperation agreement between Hamburg Airport and Christchurch International Airport, Prof. Sally Brooker says: “We look forward to continuing to support and facilitate the rapid development of both airports’ zero-emissions ambitions, particularly with regard to green hydrogen.” “

  Please have a read of Christchurch and Hamburg airports’ press releases (18 October 2022)

• Bspkl, GNS Science’s first spin-out company, has raised $2.5m in seed funding to develop and scale up their Catalyst Coated Membrane (CCM) technology. CCM significantly reduces the amount of catalyst (eg Platinum, Iridium or other rare metals) required for electrolysers to generate hydrogen, and Bspkl have plans to expand this tech to related systems such as fuel cells (NBR and GNS 3 April 2023)
• Fabrum has received an order from Obayashi Corporation for a 1 MW MFE220 electrolyser, Fabrum’s first order under their manufacturing agreement with CPH2, with delivery expected in a bit over a year (CPH2 27 Mar 2023)
• Co-leader Prof Sally Brooker has written two op-ed pieces about hydrogen and the energy transition for Newsroom, please check them out: “NZ in the box seat on hydrogen” (12 Nov 2021); “An urgent step change from fossil to future fuels” (12 Dec 2021)