[Transcript]
You’re listening to the Journey to Zero podcast hosted by Alltruck Zero.
If you want to stay ahead of the game and find out more about the very latest green truck technology or you’re looking for hints and tips on how to decarbonise your own fleet, then this is the place for you. In this podcast we’ll be sitting down with the thought leaders who are guiding the way on the journey we’re all on as we work to decarbonise the transport industry. Welcome to the Alltruck Zero podcast. I’m Georgia, the host of this month’s podcast.
I’d like to welcome David Horsfall, director of Tyesely Energy Park in Birmingham. Back in 2021 David was involved in the very first Alltruck Zero podcast recording. Fast forward to 2023 and we’re welcoming David back to find out what’s evolved at Tyesely Energy Park.
[Georgia]
So welcome back to the podcast David.
[David]
Thanks very much, yeah, absolute pleasure.
[Georgia]
So David, could you give us a quick introduction to yourself?
[David]
Of course, yeah. So I’m the director of property at Tyesely Energy Park and so we’re a family owned business. We celebrated our 300th anniversary in 2020 and the business has been making wire and wire rope back since 1720 and Tyesely Energy Park was really born out of us trying to find a way of perpetuating that 300 year old business. So we’ve been making springs for people like Fox Hall, tire wire for Dunlop, components for Rover right from the early days and I think since the 1970s we’ve been through this period of decline. So we went from a business with about a thousand people and contracted to when I started in 2007 about 150.
So I’m a chartered surveyor and a planning consultant so what I was able to bring to the business was a sort of lens around how we can do things with the land and property. So we went through this kind of contraction phase and redeveloped the 10 acres across the site for what we call Tyesely Energy Park and then the refueling station is part of that and the manufacturing business still sits within the site as well. So I head up property and sustainability and yeah there’s still a manufacturing business which my co-directors run as well.
[Georgia]
Great, thank you for that. So since you last spoke to us in 2021 what has changed at Tyesely Energy Park?
[David]
Well I guess back in 2021 we were saying that we’re technology agnostic, we’re looking at all the various fuels across the site which at the time were hydrogen, liquid fuel, I think we were talking about GTL at that time and we were talking about compressed natural gas as well as commercial scale charging. So I think we found that the site maybe isn’t a perfect fit for compressed natural gas and also in terms of the liquid fuel option we’re now looking at HVO as the alternative for that drop in diesel and we’re also looking at other ways to generate hydrogen so we use electrolysis. So yes when we built the site we always knew that lots of things would change so we built it in a way that infrastructure could be moved around and fuelling options could be taken in and out. So yeah I think there was always an understanding that flexibility would need to be baked in.
But yeah we were also fortunate enough to be working with lots of small to medium sized businesses and start up businesses who are within a cluster on the site. So we’ve got an organisation called Voltempo who have developed a one megawatt charger so we’re talking to them about installation within the site. It’s amazing to have a Birmingham company with a really interesting innovation that will be deploying infrastructure and we’re also talking to organisations who could generate fuels from waste and the university also have some incredible ideas around things like hydrogen fuel cells and we were chatting earlier Georgia about recycling of batteries as well. So that’s the sort of thing that’s changed. Lots of things on the refuelling station but also other businesses on the site that have interesting innovations.
[Georgia]
That’s great. Have there been any major developments within the world of carbon-neutral fuelling since 2021?
[David]
Absolutely. So from our side of things we have a business on site that now makes a one megawatt charger. So when regulations change as we expect they will in 2024 then I think that that will significantly change the landscape in terms of charging.
We also have a project on site that has won around £7 million in funding called Amagen.
So Amagen is a project that will look at how ammonia could be used as a carrier for hydrogen. So if you can imagine you would generate ammonia in a location where there’s an abundant supply of renewables and you would then carry that around in transport which would be in liquid form and you would then take it to a location where there is a containerised unit. So think of maybe a couple of 20 foot shipping containers where that ammonia would then be cracked.
So you would split off the nitrogen then you turn it back into hydrogen as a gas and then it could be dispensed as a transport fuel. So over the next 12 months we’ll be exploring how the process works, understanding what that means in terms of price point of that hydrogen but it is really exciting the potential for that to bring down the unit price of hydrogen.
And these are the sort of things that I guess people weren’t thinking about even a few years ago or certainly we were in a Tyesely Energy Park. We’re fortunate enough to have an electrolyser on site which produces hydrogen for the buses which are running around the city but to look at a means of particularly transporting hydrogen around from a centralised location in a cost effective way is really interesting. Ammonia is around 10 times the energy density of hydrogen so I can imagine a world where you can take ammonia in a HGV to a depot and then put that through a cracker and that would be dispensing to buses or lorries and equally refuelling stations or truck stops rather than having electrolyses which they have quite a significant footprint.
We know it takes up quite a bit of land which is fine if you have the space but if you don’t then the idea that it could just fit within a corner in a couple of containers I think really opens up lots of possibilities. So I think that’s the two that have been very visible for us and there will be lots of other things that are happening in the outside world which we are always interested in if people want to come to us but that Tyesely Energy Park tries to be technology agnostic and will try things and we might make mistakes and we will learn and apply and move forward.
I think also as we were talking about earlier from a charging point of view I think we are all getting used to CCS charging and we are going to be putting in 350 kilowatt charges on our site and trialling vehicles but with the new government standards coming in hopefully in spring of 2024 and us looking at MCS 1 megawatt charging I think that’s a real game changer as well so if you can get a truck coming in and charging in there, sort of hour long break on a site, that’s a real game changer so I think that you can definitely see electric vehicles pushing on as well.
But equally I think that it’s incredible what you could do with a liquid fuel so even now being able to buy HBO and see that your emissions drop by kind of 80% in terms of CO2 and drops in particular, I think that fleets can do things now and it’s much more accessible even than it was sort of a few years ago. So yeah I think market confidence improving, refuelling infrastructure is improving and in terms of vehicle availability it’s amazing what just a couple of years have done.
[Georgia]
So how have things been at Tyesely Energy Park for you?
[David]
I think that we share all the same challenges as everyone else. As I say we have a manufacturing business so we know how hard it is to look at things like fleet decarbonisation when you’re trying to run a business and so we try and do a lot of business engagement to let people come and talk to us about what they’re doing, to share up the common issues and so we have events coming up later in the year where we will be showcasing the sort of things that we’re doing with refuelling infrastructure and it’ll be a chance for businesses to come and have a look at vehicles refuelling and talk about the performance of those vehicles to learn about the kind of experience of driving those vehicles.
So I think it’s great going to shows and seeing them but I don’t think there’s any substitute for being able to sort of see the actual infrastructure, refuelling infrastructure working and also speak to other people about their own experiences. So I guess what we offer is it’s a publicly accessible refuelling infrastructure and it hopefully provides confidence to others that you don’t need to solve this yourself, it’s not only in-depot solutions that you have to focus on and in some cases people might not have the infrastructure to be able to put in an in-depot solution in.
So yeah I hope that by that kind of honest, you know we’re all sharing the same problem and giving a real-life environment where you can come see the infrastructure, meet the OEMs who will bring vehicles there to kind of demonstrate but also you know I’d love it if it led to lots of businesses collaborating and looking at how they could potentially jointly procure vehicles and or be part of trials or you know funding bids that lead to that. I think that’s maybe what makes us a little bit different from other people and you know we’re in quite an interesting spot in sort of two miles from the city centre on a key route into the Birmingham with about 200 businesses around us. So yes it’s really important to us that nobody gets left behind and yeah using all the assets we have to help you know make the transition as easy as possible.
[Georgia]
Sounds great. Do you think people are more confident in transitioning to cleaner fuels now?
[David]
I think that with cars it’s easy. I think that you’re sort of about 20 years ahead of trucks but I think that yeah we’re talking about HGVs today aren’t we and I think that there’s a tricky one because I guess trucks have a specific function which is slightly different it’s about delivering a service and so as a result I guess that’s caused a bit of a lag so I think that the HGVs will take a little while to catch up but we were just talking about we were at the Innovation in Transport exhibition in Farnborough and seeing the difference between the number of vehicles now that are available from organisations like Scalia, Volvo, Rena, Man, Hyundai, Daimler, DAF, Aveco, they’re all bringing out really good vehicles with good range you know listening to people presenting about their transition for their fleets and how you know that people are just doing it and you know not even waiting for subsidies because they know it’s the right thing to do so yeah I think that that’s definitely given me a confidence that you know there’s now this sort of tidal wave of things happening.
I do think that yeah you’ve definitely got this lag even though you’ve got similar time scales you know cars and vans no longer being made of the internal combustion engine 2035 that’s a big thing so we’ve already got to move quickly and hopefully not everyone not reinventing the wheel themselves learning in a kind of joined up way.
[Georgia]
That leads to my next question, do you think that we can achieve net zero by 2035?
[David]
I do I think that we have to believe it and we you know we’ve put our money where our mouth is we’ve spent yeah every penny we’ve got really on the Tyesely energy park obviously has a refuelling infrastructure but also we’ve got low carbon heat and power and got a building which focuses on research and development around clean fuels and transport and lots of SMEs so we don’t think there’s a choice but I think equally seeing that government are going to be introducing this heavy goods and infrastructure strategy next year that we just sort of mentioned that shows that there’s the policy direction and that is set to give clear direction in terms of infrastructure investment.
I think there’s already decent consultation with the freight sector but there needs to be a lot more so I think nobody can sit quietly now I think everybody needs to kind of properly engage in it and I think we all need to start collaborating so as I said we’re sort of engaging with the 230 businesses around us we’re trying to be as visible as we can but I think everybody needs to do the same it can’t be I don’t think you can quietly just follow everyone else I think everybody really needs to chuck their hat in the ring to say you can share mine if I can share yours and I think that’s what we need to make it work and also working across sector as well so we’re already thinking there’s a rail depot close to us and you know by having that consistent base load for trains for example you could start generating significant amount of hydrogen or there’s going to be decent power infrastructure around there as well so by showing that you’ve also got commitment from HGVs as well you start having kind of investment capability to enable these hubs to happen so yes I have confidence but I think everybody needs to buy into this and to see that it’s not going away and all start working together in a really collaborative way.
[Georgia]
So back in 2021 when we last spoke to you, you mentioned the production of liquid fuel on site that was one of your ambitions what’s changed there?
[David]
It’s not changed, I think that there is a high probability that we will be making fuels on site that will be used within vehicles exactly which fuels I’m not quite sure yeah I think the sort of things we’re looking at would be fuels from waste so anaerobic digestion is one of the things we’re looking at at the moment so to create biomethane to be used within vehicles I think is highly possible, probable, I’ll know in the next few months if that’s going to happen but I think that that’s, I’ve talked earlier about how we may not have CNG dispensed on site but I think that we may make either a CNG which can be injected into the grid and then you can sell that green certificate and it could be used anyway anywhere or also there are other ways to make gases from that same biomethane that might be used to clean up other fuels like LPG so it works for really clever people that are kind of looking at that at the moment.
But equally using, so that’s anaerobic, anaerobic digestion technology but there’s also pyrolysis technology that we’re looking at at the moment which could also make alternative fuels which were early discussions around but it may be used more for sort of flight than transport fuel but it’s a really interesting space to be in, I think the days are gone where you just burn waste or shove it in the ground, I think waste now people realise the value of it so there are lots of technologies now that I think that are really looking at this so I think it’s great we’re moving away from fossil and it’s sort of allowed maybe increased focus on alternative ways to generate fuel.
I think everyone gravitates to electricity and it’s kind of, it’s an easy one to get your head around but I think we’ll be in a world where there’s more of a blended economy where we will be making fuels from biomethane particularly if you’re in a rural location with lots of say food waste or animal waste and you know that anaerobic digestion creating biomethane that can be used to do lots of things with but likewise AD in urban locations or like I say pyrolysis to treat municipal waste so yeah I think that it’s a really interesting world that we’re moving into and we will, I’d say next time we speak in a couple of years time I’d like to say that we’re generating a fuel on site whether we’re dispensing into the vehicles or into a grid or it’s being refined somewhere else I don’t know but yeah that’s the position now.
[Georgia]
Great, so that’s one of your ambitions, what other ambitions do you have for the next 18 months to two years?
[David]
So we are working with the City Council to regenerate the area around us so we obviously control Tyesely Energy Park so you’ve got around 20 acres where we’re doing clean power, heat, transport, fuel as well as the incubation of businesses and lots of innovation with the University of Birmingham as our partner and we’ve had about 15 years of lots of really
interesting things happening and I’d say within the next 10 years the site will be fully developed and we’ve got 400 acres around us, 230 businesses all of which face similar challenges. We’ve got a city that said it’s going to be net zero by 2030 and then it’s a region we’re saying 2040 and as a country 2050 so yeah the future for us is how we make this 400 acres around us transition to net zero in the quickest possible time.
So what I’m describing in terms of the kind of what we need to do is a country work to get the collaboratively that’s what we’re doing at the Ties of the Environment and Enterprise District think of it as a microcosm of that so those businesses all of which need to we hope they want to work with us to share their challenges and also what their assets and opportunities they have so these organisations will all have roofs where they can put solar on they will all have wastes that could be used locally they will have different byproducts and different inputs so it’s sort of trying to use this as an opportunity to kind of stop business as usual and think what is the optimum way for us to decarbonise which might be we’d electrify everything or it may be why don’t we use all the power we’ve got on our assets to generate lots of hydrogen or maybe we need to focus on making district heating because that’s the most sort of carbon emitting biggest carbon emitting factor.
As part of that journey it’s kind of what does the world look like if we’re we have consolidation centres and what’s the best way to move materials around which might be micro mobility what if the city brings in an ultra low emission zone how does that influence you as a business so yeah that’s what the future looks like for us it’s we want this to become the blueprint certainly for the city because I think it’s one thing in 2018 saying we will be net zero by 2030 when you’ve got a population of 1.2 million and millions of different stakeholders and a local authority which you know they’re not going to do everything by themselves it’s just impossible it’s trying to pick a geography where you can put a kind of a circle around and do some of those challenging things do a lot of learning do a lot of mistakes that you can learn from quickly and then apply it elsewhere that’s what we want to do.
We’re on a journey we’ve just signed a collaboration agreement with the City Council and the University of Birmingham which is sort of binding us to that plan we’re developing a master plan the transport will play a key role within that and yeah it’s going to be an interesting few years.
[Georgia]
yeah certainly we can’t wait to see what the future holds for you guys
[David]
really it would be great great if people would reach out to us if they have any fleet requirements or if they’re based in the West Midlands or even if they’re not based in the West Midlands I’d love to hear from businesses that might have fleets or questions around fleets because I think that’s how we’ve sort of learned in the past is to sort of find problems and see how we can help tackle them.
We’ve also got an event we’re looking at around the it’s about the 23rd of November so we will put out invitations to lots of OEMs the fuel suppliers will be there but yeah we’re looking for businesses that are interested in learning that maybe want to come and have a look at the infrastructure so yeah that anyone that’s interested to please ideally via yourself make contact and love to be able to put them on our distribution list for events like this.
[Georgia]
I think everyone should follow you on social and get signed up for your email newsletter and we’ll definitely be there when you have your open-day event for sure.
[David]
Brilliant okay well Tyesely Energy is the easiest way to find us on either websites or Twitter, LinkedIn that sort of thing.
[Georgia]
Thank you so much David for your time today and I’m sure we’ll be speaking to you soon.