Fonterra predicts fuel savings of 60 percent from six electric milk tankers the co-operative has on the road in time for the new season.
Fonterra Hautapu annual meeting, from left Mel Mander, Jude van Bommel, site manager Jonathan Bouda, Tom Bamford and Dale Arbury. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
Infrastructure to support the tankers is in place at the dairy factories, including Hautapu plant in Cambridge.
Details were revealed at Fonterra’s annual meeting with neighbours last week when Environmental manager Jude van Bommel revealed the fleet decarbonisation would provide many environmental benefits.
The tankers are part of a $150 million in electrification projects across the North Island over the next 18 months. The move will take the equivalent of 6500 cars off the road. Each tanker can drive 75km on a single charge.
The e-tanker was trialled over two years at Waitoa near Morrinsville.
Other investments into electric boilers at Whareroa, Edgecumbe and Waitoa sites mark further steps in renewable energy supporting Fonterra’s sustainability targets while future-proofing operations.
Fonterra’s chief operating officer Anna Palairet said in a release the investments are a significant step for the co-operative’s future operations.
The electric milk tanker which was trialled at the Waitoa plant in the Waikato.
Hautapu had the last coal boiler in the North Island and it was turned off last year. The boiler has been fully converted to biomass and is firing on wooden pellets.
“Choosing the right energy solutions is about striking a balance between affordability, security of energy supply and reducing our environmental footprint, and the new electric boilers are crucial to navigating this challenge,” said Palairet.
“These electrification projects are at the heart of ensuring efficient operations with a reliable energy supply for our manufacturing sites and to support the long-term sustainability of our business. It also represents a commitment to our farmer owners that we are building a resilient, future-ready co-operative.”
Commissioning of Hautapu’s new $85 million wastewater treatment plant began in February with biological startup in April. The plant treats processing wastewater and other wastewater streams through a tank, segregating it into several sections where microorganisms break down organic matter and reduce a range of contaminants including nitrogen and phosphorous.
Fonterra Hautapu annual meeting – the treatment process
The water either goes onto Hautapu’s management farms or, when weather conditions are too wet on the farms, through a final filtration for discharge into Waikato River.
Van Bommel produced samples of the treated water which attendees at the annual meeting were able to smell but not drink.
Fonterra is waiting on final resource consent to discharge at a new point in the river from its original consent. The co-operative wants to release the treated water at the same point of the river as Waipā District Council, adjacent to the Te Awa Cycle Ride and the new St Peter’s residential development.
Hautapu is expecting its first milk to the site on July 16. Biomass will be introduced into the wastewater treatment plant’s southern bioreactor in August, the biological treatment will be fine-tuned and there will be an iwi blessing in September.
The plant should be fully operational by July next year.
Fonterra principal environmental engineer Tom Bamford shows a section of Fonterra’s new Hautapu wastewater plant where commissioning is about to finish. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
