Aspiring vanadium miner QEM says it has shortlisted three bidding groups for its proposed 1 gigawatt of wind and solar to power its proposed Julia Creek vanadium mining and processing project in north west Queensland.
The Julia Creek project is one of a number of massive mining and refining projects that the state government hopes to unlock by committing $5 billion to building the 1,100km Copperstring transmission line from Townsville to Mt Isa.
QEM is seeking one gigawatt of wind and solar capacity over several stages to provide low cost and zero emissions power – key to the vanadium that it hopes to supply to the emerging vanadium battery industry.
The three-shortlisted groups cited by QEM are Spanish energy giant Acciona Energia, Italy-based Enel Green Power, and Australia’s Origin Energy, in partnership with renewable and storage developer Energy Estate.
Acciona is already building Queensland’s biggest wind precinct, the 1GW MacIntyre facility, although this project has run into problems with anticipated connection delays that forced the state-owned CleanCo to abandon its plans for a 103MW wind farm within the precinct.
“QEM has prioritised the design and development of the renewables project with the primary objective of obtaining cheaper electricity for the Julia Creek Project,” QEM managing director Gavin Loyden said in a statement.
“To put the QEM renewables project in context, there was 6GW of large-scale wind and solar projects in Queensland when the Plan was launched last year. By 2030, the Government projects it will require 16GWs of wind and solar projects and 25GWs by 2035,” he said.
QEM says it has been conducting wind and solar monitoring over the last 12 months, as well as environmental assessments, topographic surveys, preliminary flood modelling, and geotechnical studies.
“Critical minerals like vanadium are vital for the global transition to clean energy. The opportunity for QEM and the broader North West Minerals Province is to harness the region’s wind and solar resource above the ground to explore, develop and refine the critical minerals under it,” Loyden said.
QEM has previously boasted of its plans to extract shale oil as well as vanadium from the Julia Creek project but there was no mention of shale oil in the latest release.
QEM says it will commence commercial negotiations with the shortlisted companies in July. Work on the Copperstring transmission link is expected to begin in 2024 and be complete by 2029.
