Airports and transport companies look to a sparky future

MONEY is seemingly flowing into cleaner energy within the transport sector, with ground support equipment at airports and battery electric trucks among interesting announcements during the past week.

Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport (WSI) and Freightquip announced a partnership that will see WSI become the first Australian airport to operate an airport-wide GSE pooling program.

From October, WSI will have the highest proportion of electric ground support equipment of any airport nationally.

Freightquip is to supply and operate a GSE fleet covering the complete scope of airside operations, including baggage handling, cargo loading and aircraft movement.

The fleet is predominantly electric, covering key airside functions including belt loaders, cargo loaders, baggage tractors and pushback equipment.

WSIA chief executive Simon Hickey said when they set out to design the airport ground operation, they knew they had an opportunity to do something special.

“By combining GSE pooling with a predominantly electric fleet, WSI is modernising ground operations, improving fleet utilisation, safety and ultimately reducing the environmental impact of our operations,” Mr Hickey said.

Freightquip COO and head of aviation, Andrew Steel, said they were “genuinely excited to bring that experience to WSI”.

“This is a real opportunity to help set a new standard for how airports approach ground operations.

“To provide an advanced GSE pooling operation at a brand new airport is something our team is incredibly proud to be part of,” Mr Steel said.

“We see WSI as the beginning of a much bigger shift in how the industry approaches ground operations globally."

Meanwhile, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) has committed up to $22 million to back the large-scale deployment of battery electric trucks (BETs), helping electric fleet specialist Zenobe Australia acquire a fleet of up to 148 BETs to deliver low emissions groceries.

The transaction backs what will be the largest fleet rollout of electric trucks in Australia, the Foton T5 BETs will be leased to Woolworths for last mile delivery across New South Wales and Victoria, with additional vehicles in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia.

The BETs will be leased to Woolworths with the full fleet rollout completed during 2027.

CEFC head of infrastructure Julia Hinwood said by increasing the uptake of BETs, they were “helping develop the market to bring them closer to price parity with their non-electric counterparts”.

"With fuel price volatility and supply risks increasingly material for freight operators, early large‐scale deployments are critical to generating the real‐world performance data and operating benchmarks needed to underpin a secondary market for electric heavy vehicles,” Ms Hinwood said.

Zenobē country director, Australia and New Zealand, Gareth Ridge, said the project was evidence that electrification was a commercial opportunity.

“Woolworths is already rolling out hundreds of electric trucks at scale, that’s almost unheard of in Australia’s freight sector and proof that with the right business model and competitive pricing from Zenobē, electrification stacks up right now,” Mr Ridge said.

“Together with Woolworths and the CEFC, we’re proving that large-scale zero-emissions logistics is no longer a pilot, it’s commercially viable and operationally proven.”