In early April, our surfacing, technical, project management and asphalt plant teams came together to deliver a series of night works on Barbadoes Street as part of our Te Kaha Surrounding Streets project.
This project gave us an opportunity to lay over 450t of our AC14 25% RAP mix, which is an exciting development in our sustainability journey through Isaac Asphalt Ltd.
In 2023, Isaac Asphalt Ltd embarked on a redevelopment of their Christchurch asphalt plant. After a procurement process, a Marini Top Tower 2500 was selected as the model of choice. The new plant was officially switched on in February 2024 and has significantly impacted our sustainability goals.
The new burner is 12.2% more efficient, burning less fuel per tonne, with the majority of the fuel being waste oil. Waste oil is used to power the plant, which is purchased from various waste management companies who we supply from our Christchurch workshop and engineering departments. The new plant has also shown a significant reduction in particulate emissions—currently, these are 80% less than the average for the last ten years and are recorded as less than 10% of the allowable stack emissions in our resource consent conditions.*
In early 2025 we turned on a new power transformer to run our asphalt plant. This new transformer will feature Power Factor Correction and should help to improve our overall energy consumption at the plant.
To further support our sustainability goals, in August 2024 we invested in an all-new fully electric zero-emissions loader. The XCMG XC968-EV Loader has been supplied by E-Trucks and co-funded by EECA. The new loader is expected to reduce annual diesel usage by over 10,000 litres. Based on annual fuel usage, we are predicting a reduction in carbon emissions by over 30,000 kg of CO2.** Maintenance costs will also be reduced by approximately 25%. The larger capacity bucket will reduce loader movement between stockpiles and loading of the cold feeders. As the loader moves down the cold feeder ramp, it uses the braking system to assist with recharging the loader to allow for longer operations.
*Source: Independent assessment by K2 Environmental Ltd, 16th May 2024.
**Calculation based on fuel usage multiplied by 2.67.