By 2023’s third quarter, Ark expects five of the world’s largest fuel-cell trucks to be hauling concentrated zinc ore and finished ingots between a zinc refinery and the nearby port of Townsville.The 124-megawatt solar plant adjacent to Korea Zinc’s Townsville refinery, completed in 2018, cut a quarter of the coal-heavy grid power it had been using to run its power-intensive electrolytic process.Next it ordered equipment for the Townsville truck project to begin exploring green hydrogen’s capabilities and challenges.To fuel the trucks, Ark Energy ordered a 1-MW electrolyzer from Plug Power, based in Latham, N.Y. Kim anticipated that construction of the electrolyzer facility would start around the end of 2022, and vowed that five fuel-cell trucks would be looping to port and back on hydrogen gas in the third quarter of 2023 or sooner.Kim says these vehicles will cost “a little over three times” that of an equivalent diesel-fueled hauler, up front, but the overall project should break even or even save money over the trucks’ projected 10-year operating life."