Gold Fields’ Granny Smith gold mine is set to install one of the world’s largest renewable energy microgrids powered by more than 20,000 solar panels and backed up by a 2MW /1MWh battery system.
The mining company has contracted mobile and modular power company Aggreko to design, build and operate the 8MW solar power generation system along with the battery system at Granny Smith, which is located east of Laverton in Western Australia’s Goldfields region.
Gold Fields Executive Vice President Australasia, Stuart Mathews, said the renewable energy microgrid is part of Gold Fields’ vision of leadership in sustainable gold mining.
“We are thrilled to reach an agreement with Aggreko for the design, installation and operation of this innovative source of renewable energy which will generate nearly enough power to run the mine’s processing operations,” Mathews said.
“We expect the renewable power microgrid will be up and running at Granny Smith by Q4 2019 and it will be a welcome addition
to our suite of on-site energy solutions across other operations which will enable us to reduce our carbon footprint,” he said.
Construction of the renewable energy system is planned to commence in May and, when completed, will be one of the world’s largest hybrid off-grid microgrids and integrated with Aggreko’s existing 24.2MW natural gas generation.
Aggreko AusPac Managing Director, George Whyte, said the solar, thermal and battery storage assets will be seamlessly integrated and managed by Aggreko’s control software platform – maintaining full system availability and optimising the lifetime of existing thermal assets.
“The solar-plus-battery system is projected to reduce fuel consumption by 10-13% – the equivalent of removing 2,000 cars from the road – and produce about 18 GWh of clean energy per year,” Whyte said.
“Gold Fields understands the performance, cost and environmental advantages for their operation, as well as the need to integrate this resource into their system without compromising power supply reliability or mining productivity,” he said.
While the solar PV will reduce the need to run thermal generators, the battery plant will provide essential services such as spinning reserve displacement, PV ramp rate control and transient voltage/frequency support.
The current Granny Smith power station was designed and installed by Aggreko in 2016 and the new hybrid power system, combined with a thermal station expansion will meet the increased daily power needs of 24.2MW, with 12.2MW allocated to the Wallaby underground mine and the remaining 12 MW to the processing plant, associated facilities and mining camp.
