Z Energy supports Wellington Free Ambulance on their energy transition journey
EV Charging November 5, 2025
Left to right: Josh Brain, Fleet Manager WFA, Lauree Duncan, Patient Transfer Officer WFA, Ratna Attli, Head of Patient Transfer Services WFA, Samuel McKee, Patient Transfer Service Team Leader WFA and Andrew Bisset, Energy Business Solutions Manager at Z.
Wellington Free Ambulance (WFA) plays a vital role for the people of Greater Wellington and Wairarapa as the region’s only free 24/7 ambulance service provider. As a long-term Z Energy (Z) customer, the Z team were on board to support WFA when they began electrifying part of their fleet, offering Z’s business charging suite of products and services, including access to Z’s public EV charging network and workplace charging infrastructure solutions. A particular highlight for Z was the opportunity to donate 10 workplace electric vehicle (EV) chargers.
Critical community support
Beyond emergency care, WFA supports its communities in many other ways, including through its Patient Transfer Service (PTS). The PTS are a group of skilled health care professionals who transport over 43,000 people every year, safely and comfortably to and from their places of treatment. Patient journeys include travelling from home to the hospital and back for dialysis or cancer treatment, taking new mothers to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) to feed their babies or helping hospice patients fulfil their final wishes.
In recent years, while still providing secure and reliable transport, the PTS had been operating with an ageing fleet of vehicles. Ratna Attli, Head of Patient Transfer Services, explains, “our fleet was still safe for our staff to drive and to meet patient needs, but we had to consider whether they would continue to be fit for purpose – and we wanted to think about our environmental impact as well.”
After a process of trialing different hybrid vehicles, WFA settled on acquiring six new Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) for its PTS service.
Developing a plan
With PHEV’s set to make up a larger portion of the PTS fleet, WFA needed a reliable EV charging infrastructure solution that would support the operation of their new vehicles.
Andrew Bisset, Energy Business Solutions Manager at Z explains how his team were able to support WFA’s unique requirements.
“We took a deep dive into WFA’s operations to develop a solution aimed at best supporting their unique needs,”
“We began by analysing their utilisation patterns, including average kilometres driven and typical service routes to understand where and how their vehicles could be charged,”
“From there, we helped WFA identify the most suitable depots for infrastructure installation, as well as public charging locations across the Z network that are convenient for them.”
Following site specific assessments, Z successfully installed 10 donated workplace chargers across 10 of WFA’s depots in Wellington.
WFA’s Head of Fleet, Josh Brain explains the benefits of having the ability to charge on site.
“Being able to charge at our stations is great, it means staff can charge while on a break or between split shifts,”
"We have appreciated the support Z has provided throughout the entire process. They managed the installation of the chargers, which was a complexity we didn’t have to worry about, and they were quick at coming up with solutions on where to strategically place the chargers to minimise the installation cost where possible," continues Josh.
Post-installation, the Z team continues to provide WFA with ongoing support for the workplace chargers through a charger management platform, maintenance services and access to a 24/7 customer support line.
Ratna explains how the additional support from Z helps her team.
“Our PTS operates 17 hours a day, seven days a week. Z's ongoing support and the availability of 24/7 assistance through the support line helps us maintain the reliability of our charging infrastructure, so our team can focus on carrying out the critical work they do.”
Looking ahead
Moving forward, Ratna says working with Z continues to be beneficial at many levels. “Having Z as a key supplier for fuel and EV charging infrastructure and public charging has definitely streamlined a lot of our processes,”
"From a management perspective, the ability to use the charger management portal to monitor the team’s charging activity and see when vehicles have been charged by crew members is really valuable. We also find their public charging stations user friendly and have made day-to-day operations easier,”
“The positive difference we make to the community is what matters to me, and being able to provide the team with the right vehicles to be able to do their job well makes it very rewarding” says Ratna.