Energy Vault has continued a string of significant partnerships and investments, as Korea Zinc contributed $50 million to have renewables deployed at its subsidiary’s refinery in Queensland
The investment came with a strategic partnership between Energy Vault and Korea Zinc subsidiary Sun Metals which operates a zinc refinery outside Townsville.
Korea Zinc is a leader in non-ferrous smelting production with specialities in zinc, lead, silver and indium.
Energy Vault recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with BHP which the latter hoped would lead to enhanced energy storage solutions for its Australian operations.
Korea Zinc vice chairman Yun B. Choi said the investment and partnership would accelerate the company’s environmental targets.
“Energy Vault’s innovative storage technology and energy management software platform can play a key role in enabling and accelerating our decarbonisation strategy as we enhance our ability to power our operations with renewable energy,” Choi said.
Sun Metals is the second largest consumer of electricity in Queensland, consuming more than one terawatt hour per annum.
The company has a goal to entirely power its operations with renewable electricity by 2040, with a target of 80 per cent renewables by 2030.
Energy Vault chief executive officer and co-founder Robert Piconi said he was proud to partner with Korea Zinc and Sun Metals as they target total decarbonisation.
“Korea Zinc has demonstrated tremendous global leadership as a company in setting aggressive decarbonisation targets and then investing significant capital to make sustainable, decarbonised energy a reality for their operations, and that certainly is the case here with their investment in Energy Vault,” Piconi said.
Energy Vault is a company founded by technology incubator Idealab and developed its proprietary energy storage solution in Switzerland in 2018.