By Sonali Paul
MELBOURNE: An arm of Korea Zinc said on Thursday it will buy out an Australian wind and solar energy developer with a big pipeline of projects to help decarbonise its zinc metal processes and to power green hydrogen production.
The South Korean zinc giant’s Australian clean energy arm Ark Energy said it would acquire 4.2 gigawatts (GW) of proposed wind and solar developments and a further investigation pipeline of 4.8 GW of projects through a takeover of Epuron Holdings.
The companies did not disclose the acquisition price.
Ark Energy was set up this year to decarbonise Korea Zinc’s energy supply and says it aims to be the world’s most competitive green hydrogen producer and eventually aims to export green hyodrgen from Australia to South Korea.
“Ark Energy’s commitment to accelerate the energy transition requires us to significantly enhance our capability to develop and build out a large renewable energy portfolio,” Korea Zinc Vice Chairman Yun Choi said in a statement.
Green hydrogen is produced by using renewable energy to power electrolysers to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Ark Energy plans to speed up development of Epuron’s large portfolio of projects.
Ark earlier this year won nearly A$21 million ($15 million) in state and federal funding to start producing green hydrogen for fuel cell trucks at the company’s Sun Metals zinc refinery in Queensland state.
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The hydrogen will be used to fuel five new 140-tonne fuel cell electric trucks, due from Hyzon Motors in December 2022, to transport zinc from the refinery to the port of Townsville, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) said.