In 2012, Blue Diamond Machinery (BDM) was a three-man start-up with a 200 square metre base in the Perth suburb Welshpool. Fast forward 10 years, the team has now taken a deep dive into the emission-free space.

When Blue Diamond began, brothers Justin and Brad Pitts, and school friend Chris Simpson ventured to supply generators, compressors and lighting systems to Western Australia’s mining and agricultural industries.

Now, Blue Diamond is at the forefront of the Australian market for power generation with their sights on supporting the transition to clean, alternative power solutions.

Prior to Blue Diamond, Justin and Brad worked in the family business, an irrigation and pump company, Total Eden, established by their father and uncle in 1977. After Total Eden was sold, Justin continued to work as general manager with the new owners for five years. However, neither Justin nor Brad shared the passion for the roles they were in and decided to branch out into a business for themselves.

With little luck finding an existing business to buy that piqued their interests, the brothers decided to build one from the ground up. Instead of continuing within the irrigation and pumping industry, Justin and Brad decided to branch out into power generation. 

“At the time, my-father-in-law was in the process of selling import distribution business… some of the key products that sold well for him were diesel generators, along with a lot of similar product lines. But the generators in particular stood out to us.”

Justin had some understanding of generators from his time in the irrigation industry. Meanwhile, Brad was searching for equipment and products that met the demand of Western Australia’s mining and agricultural sectors.

“...Generators fitted those criteria.” Justin says.“Because Brad and I both came from a sales and marketing background, we did not know too much about the mechanical side of things, it was at this point we brought in Chris Simpson… A mechanical fitter by trade, he had been working in mining for 20 years.

“The three of us set off to find suppliers in China and Singapore and originally brought in three containers of stock and set a fairly humble 200 square metre office in Welshpool. We also had a truck and a forklift! We still deal with these suppliers to this day but we also have key partners across Europe and Japan.

“We set up a website, put an ad in the paper and we waited for the phone to ring. Luckily it did! We sold all the contents of those three containers within a month and used the proceeds of those sales to buy mores stock,” Justin said.

At first, Blue Diamond was positioned as an umbrella industrial business, rather than being a specialist in any particular range.

“But the power generation range was always dominant, so around 2017 we decided to embrace this as our core business…,”Justin said.

While Blue Diamond isn’t in the rental industry, they supply to rental specialist companies such as Kennards Coates and OnSite. In addition to these valued partnerships, Blue Diamond also offer customised, full turnkey power solutions to mining, which, at times, requires the team to offer rental, or rent to buy.

Now, the Blue Diamond team has more than 60 employees in a 10,000 square metre head office, located in Kewdale, a semi-industrial suburb of Perth. Blue Diamond has also expanded inter-state with slightly more modest, but fully functional operations in Melbourne and Brisbane, with a Sydney-based facility opening in the near future.

Blue Diamond Is Set Up for a Cleaner Future

In late 2021, Blue Diamond Machinery signed an agreement with French company Energy Observer Developers (EODev) to bring the first electro-hydrogen power generators to Australia. In turn, marking Blue Diamond's commitment to support the transition into a greener energy future within the construction, industrial and mining sectors.

EODev’s electro hydrogen generator utilises Toyota’s newest hydrogen fuel cell technology. It produces zero carbons, there’s no noise pollution, only outputting hot water and air so it’s completely waste-free. This new technology is looking to become an attractive alternative to diesel generators once production and hydrogen-accessibility ramps up.

The GEH2: EODev's Electro Hydrogen Generator

When first seeing EODev’s 100kVA generator, Justin describes how well the unit would fit into their existing range. “We thought, ‘wow, that is exactly what we want’ as our core range is between 20kVA to 200kVA. So the 100kVA was right in our sweet spot.”

“It was robust and highly portable for construction, mining and rental. There was nothing quite like it so we decided we would try and get the agency for it,” Justin continues.

“We approached the sales manager and over a few months eventually won the agency and ordered our first two containers. We then started reaching out to hydrogen specialists trying to get our heads around compliance issues and the availability of hydrogen. It has been a very steep learning curve and while I believe diesel generators will remain a part of our business for quite a while during this time of transition, the pathway for hydrogen is becoming clearer by the day.”

“The GEH2 generator uses a Toyota fuel cell, Toyota is also a shareholder of EODev, which makes the units in Paris. Once our agreement with EODev was announced, the Toyota Hydrogen Centre, led my Matt Mcleod, reached out to offer us support. This has been invaluable; they have assisted us with both the compliance and the promotion as has easily accelerated this initiative in Australia by at least one or two years.

“The units will require some local customisation as running them in Paris is very different to running them in the Pilbara. How do they perform at 50°C with red dust all around? It is likely we will need to make some adjustments locally for this market. We have interest from many major mining companies and government on facilitating some of these trials. So this year will all be about the promotion of these hydrogen generators, compliance, operating procedures and getting our story out there. Plus getting them operating on construction sites in the metro areas, then expand to mining next year [2023] once we have the data.”

Despite their progress, the Blue Diamond team still may need to go through more growing pains.

Justin reflects on the teams journey and look towards what the future holds. “This is a huge investment for a company of our size and capacity. There is a lot of financial risk involved, but it has given us purpose, energy and we can already feel we are on the right path.”

Blue Diamond has an array of high profile clients circulating within the mining and Tier 1 construction industries and is already seeing significant demand and interest in its Net Zero range.

With the pressing scrutiny of carbon emissions by law and policy makers who approve mining and construction projects, having a sustainable component to power generation ticks a large box for potential developers.

“Whatever the switch has been in the past six months, it’s been pretty night and day,” Justin says. “We’re getting asked all the time for renewable options - not just hydrogen, also battery storage and energy storage systems.”

Blue Diamond is also the exclusive national distributor for leading Japanese brand Denyo Generators and Italian brands Rotair portable air compressors and Italtower lighting towers.

“Trusted by major mine sites, Tier 1 rental and construction companies, you can be assured you are getting the right equipment and right advice for your fleet or project.”

“We are committed to making sustainability an integral part of our culture and shaping our strategy. We have committed to developing products and services that assist our customers to decarbonise, while also supporting the broader community with the clean energy transition. As we look forward to the future of fuel and energy, the deployment of renewable hydrogen and renewable electricity within our operations and for our customers is a key focus,” says Justin. 

At a glance:

Blue Diamond Machinery

Web address: www.bluedm.com.au

Physical and postal addresses:

Perth: 9 Valentine St, Kewdale Western Australia, 6105

Brisbane: 1890 Ipswich Rd, Rocklea, Queensland, 4106

Melbourne: Warehouse 1, 12 Holcourt Road, Laverton, North Victoria, 3028

Telephone:

Nationwide: 1300 998 647

Perth: (08) 9353 4436

Brisbane: (07) 3211 1224

Melbourne: (03) 8383 7077

Email addresses:

Sales: sales@bluedm.com.au

Service and technical: service@bluedm.com.au

Accounts: accounts@bluedm.com.au