WA mine boosts solar and storage so it can run on renewables only during day

A Western Australian mining operation will boost its solar and storage capacity to allow it to run entirely with on-site renewables for up to nine hours a day.

Zenith Energy will deploy additional solar and battery storage capacity at IGO’s Nova nickel-copper-cobalt operation in the West Australian Goldfields, which it says will allow the mine to be powered continuously by on-site renewables.

The site is currently powered by a hybrid solar and diesel plant, but with the addition of a further 10MW of solar capacity and the installation of a 10MWh battery storage system, the project will be able to go “engine off” for the diesel generator for up to nine hours at a time.

IGO COO Matt Dusci says the project sets a new “benchmark” for resources projects and the broader decarbonisation of the metals industry.

“This is an important next step in IGO’s journey towards carbon neutrality,” Dusci said.

“By supporting greater uses of renewable energy at our Nova operation, it will set a new industry benchmark in renewable energy integration and demonstrates our commitment to decarbonise our business.

“We are now at a point where technology and cost structure are enabling powering of an entire mining operation with 100 per cent renewable penetration.”

The project will become one of the first industrial operations with the ability to run entirely on renewables for extended periods – although some residential microgrids already run on 100 per cent renewables.

Zenith Energy executive manager, Dominic Da Cruz, said the expanded solar and storage project was able to provide the grid stability and inertia requirements of the microgrid serving the mining project, and could act as a stepping stone to 100 per cent renewable mining sites using similar available technologies.

“Zenith is already looking at what subsequent steps are needed to achieve this, including how we make wind assets relocatable to achieve higher levels of renewable penetration and the integration of long-duration storage,” Da Cruz said.

“It’s an exciting time not just for Zenith as a company, but for the entire industry. We’re making real progress in the decarbonisation space and what that might look like for the sector moving forward.”

The IGO project at Nova has hosted solar power for several years, having previously installed around 25MW of solar power capacity that had previously met about half of the projects electricity needs. The expansion would take the mining site’s total solar capacity to around 35MW.

The mining project will continue to rely on power from its diesel generator overnight and during periods where cloud prevents the site’s solar capacity from meeting the energy needs of the mining project.

Zenith said the project – which has used 5B’s deployable solar panel technology – had been designed to ensure both the solar and battery storage installed at the project was relocatable, allowing them to be reused once the Nova mine is closed.

At a nearby project, the Agnew gold mine in Western Australia announced in November last year that it had transitioned to operating with up to 85 per cent renewable electricity, deploying a mix of solar, wind and battery storage to dramatically reduce the amount of diesel used at the mine.