Hyzon to deliver five huge hydrogen trucks to Australia zinc refinery

Hyzon Motors, the New York-based global supplier of zero-emissions hydrogen fuel cell-powered commercial vehicles, is to deliver five of its “ultra-heavy-duty” hydrogen-powered trucks to the Queensland zinc refinery operation of the world’s largest zinc, lead, and silver producer.

The five 154-tonne hydrogen trucks – which are believed to be the world’s heaviest zero-emissions trucks, weighing in at twice the weight of an empty Space Shuttle – will be used in road train configurations by Korea Zinc subsidiary Ark Energy and its sister company Townsville Logistics.

The order is part of the efforts by Korea Zinc to turn the Townsville based Sun Metals zinc refinery into the first in the world to produce “green zinc.”

Sun Metals became the first major energy consumer in Australia to build a solar farm near its premises to help decarbonise its electricity supply, and has since turned its focus on hydrogen to further reduce emissions.

The five 154-tonne hydrogen trucks will be deployed in road train configurations, replacing diesel equivalent, and are expected to reduce CO2 emissions by more than 1,400-tonnes per year.

“When we scoured the world for fuel cell trucks, we found that Hyzon Motors was the only hydrogen mobility company that could manufacture fuel cells stacks with a sufficient power density to meet our requirements including the ultra-heavy payload and built to Australian Design Rules,” said Ark Energy CEO Daniel Kim.

“In addition, Hyzon Motors was the only OEM that was interested in supplying the Australian market in the next 18 months.”

Sun Metals and Ark Energy have already built their own hydrogen refilling station, and with support from the Queensland government’s Hydrogen Industry Development Fund, is looking to build the state’s first maor renewable hydrogen supply chain .

In late-2020, Sun Metals Corporation, the second largest single site consumer of electricity in Queensland, announced that it was joining the global RE100 initiative and committing to power its entire operations with 100% renewable electricity by 2040.

“At Sun Metals, we’re proud to join RE100 and make this commitment to powering our operations with 100% renewable electricity,” said Kiwon Park, Sun Metals CEO. “We have already started our renewables journey.

“As the first major energy user in Australia to build its own large scale solar farm, we’re already getting 22% of our electricity from solar and based upon our development pipeline we will easily achieve 100% renewable by 2040.”

Described by the company as weighing twice as much as an empty Space Shuttle when fully loaded, the 154-tonne trucks are considered the industry’s heaviest and are expected to provide 480kW of power.