Photo: Marika Khabazi
Officials have embarked on a salvage job now that a hydrogen truck building project with a US firm that had faced fraud charges in the US has gone off track.
US company Hyzon has pulled out of Australia, leaving a deal to modify 20 trucks for Auckland company TR Group hanging.
The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) helped fund the deal, so far putting in $2 million out of $8m of public money, and its partnership manager Richard Briggs is in meetings over other options.
"Of course it's gone off track because Hyzon's closed the door," Briggs said.
"So we're now working with TR to put it back on track and make sure those trucks do get on the road ... as soon as possible."
Hyzon was charged in the US with misleading investors about its business relationships and vehicle sales, and settled last year without admitting or denying the allegations, agreeing to pay the US Securities and Exchange Commission $40m.
The EECA said it did due diligence on the project with Hyzon in 2021 using lawyers Chapman Tripp and KPMG.
TR Group told RNZ it had three other options to modify the trucks.
Its first two trucks were due to be delivered to New Zealand in mid-August; four have been modified but were still being tested. TR Group owns the other 16 unmodified diesel trucks.
It would now likely be 2025 before any modified ones were in use here, EECA said.
Briggs is meeting later on Friday with Canterbury clean vehicle maker, Global Bus Ventures, about its capacity to modify them.
TR Group has said Global was a real option.
RNZ has approached the company for comment.
Hyzon said a few days ago it was getting out of Australia and the Netherlands due to challenging market conditions.
Briggs said this was "not a blow" to the viability of hydrogen trucks and the refuelling network being built.
Another $16m of public money, also overseen by EECA - some of it a loan that converts to a grant - has gone into building the first hydrogen refuelling network; so far three out of four sites have been built by Taranaki company Hiringa.
Tech demonstration projects like these were designed to inform the industry what was possible, and were inherently "high risk", Briggs said.
"This is not unusual for us.
"It's really, really important that this project does succeed."
Once Hiringa has built all four stations, $6m of the loan reverts to a grant, and the other $10m stays as a loan. EECA has so far paid $14.5m to the company.
Hiringa in 2021 said it had a supply agreement with Hyzon to put up to 1500 hydrogen trucks on the road by 2026.
Hiringa has not responded to requests for comment.
Briggs said it was a chicken-and-egg situation, regards what came first, the hydrogen trucks or the network to refuel them; even establishing the price of a kilo of hydrogen was up in the air.
The government this year got rid of a $100m fund set up by Labour to fund rebates for a decade on green hydrogen consumption that would have made hydrogen trucks cheaper to run.
Budget 2024 set up a grant scheme for clean heavy vehicles with $30m over three years, and redirected $60m over four years for electric buses.