Ark Energy building green hydrogen truck station in Townsville
A Korean and North Queensland consortium are bringing five hydrogen haulage trucks on the road by mid-2024, and a special servo to fuel them up. See how they’re ‘inventing the future’.
Townsville
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Townsville motorists may soon be sharing the Bruce Highway with hydrogen-powered trucks, and the servo for the no-pollution fuel will be just ten minutes out of town.
Once production starts, trucks running on green hydrogen will shuttle zinc ingots from Sun Metals’ refinery in Stuart, to the Port of Townsville, in part thanks to $8m in Queensland government funding.
‘Green’ hydrogen refers to hydrogen manufactured without the use of fossil fuels. It is an energy-intensive process to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, but the fuel produced only emits water vapour when burnt.
North Queensland’s wealth of sunshine makes it an ideal spot for a hydrogen industry, and resources Minister Scott Stewart was full of praise for the project.
“A lot of the technology hasn’t been developed or invented before. So as they’re actually working through this project, they’re actually inventing the future,” the minister said of Ark Energy’s project.
“For many, many years, we’ve had people talking about hydrogen. Now we can actually point to what’s actually happening in this space,” Mr Stewart said.
“This is about decarbonising economies. This is real … Queensland is certainly leading the way when it comes to hydrogen production in Australia.”
Ark Energy will make green hydrogen with a 1MW ‘polymer electrolyte membrane electrolyser’, which it says can make 155t of green hydrogen a year.
About 90t of the fuel will power five 140 ton-rated fuel cell electric trucks, and the trucks refuel at SunHQ.
Townsville Logistics will lease the trucks from its sister company, Ark Energy.
Other businesses can use the remaining 65t of fuel, and Minister Stewart hinted another transport company was interested in the fuel from SunHQ.
“You’ll see it in the transport industry in another incarnation very soon. But this is real. You can touch this and see it and see it operating,” Mr Stewart said.
Mundingburra MP and ALP ‘hydrogen champion’ Les Walker said Sun Metals and Ark Energy were putting Townsville on the global map for hydrogen, as “first movers”.
The people of Townsville should be proud of the developments, and Ark Energy were not just talking about clean green energy they were doing it, investing, and sharing with wider industries, Mr Walker said.
Ark Energy chief executive Daniel Kim said the price of a fuel cell electric truck was commercial-in-confidence, but it cost about 2.5 times a regular diesel truck.
The project would have catalytic effects in building a decarbonised economy, Mr Kim said.
“Our intention is to really build and stimulate and create the demand within the domestic economy for green hydrogen,” he said.
About 25 construction jobs have been created. Green hydrogen is expected to be made and tested by March 2024, and the first fuel cell electric truck is expected to arrive by June.
Trucks play a large role in Australia’s emissions, and due to their size are much more viable for hydrogen-fuel cells than personal vehicles, which use traditional EV batteries.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency granted the SunHQ project $3m, and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation loaned $12.5m.
Ark Energy is owned by parent company Korea Zinc Co.
Originally published as Ark Energy building green hydrogen truck station in Townsville
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