Wind turbines ready to install at remote mine microgrid, after making longest road journey of 850km

A wind, solar and battery microgrid being built to help power a remote gold mine in Western Australia has reached a new milestone, with all of the parts for the project’s four wind turbines delivered and ready to install.

In an update posted on LinkedIn, Zenith Energy says all of the components of the Goldwind turbines have been safely delivered to the Northern Goldfields site, which as RenewEconomy has noted, might be Australia’s most inland wind farm yet.

“The components embarked on an approximately 850km journey from Geraldton Port to the site, marking the longest delivery route for wind turbines in Australia to date,” Zenith says in the post.

The 24MW wind farm consisting of four Goldwind 6MW turbines is part of the larger 46.6MW Jundee Mine Power Project, which will deliver approximately 56% of the site’s energy requirements for Northern Star Resources Limited’ Jundee gold mine.

Alongside the wind component, the microgrid being built by Zenith will include a 16.9MW solar farm and a 12MW/13.4 MWh battery. All up. the system will deliver approximately 56% of the mine site’s energy requirements.

The mine, an existing site, was previously powered by an existing gas power station.

The renewables project is underpinned by a power purchase agreement (PPA) between Zenith Energy and Northern Star Resources, which the miner says will help it “achieve and exceed” its target of a 20% reduction in the carbon intensity of its business by 2025 from a 2020 baseline. A target which includes scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.

Northern Star Resources expects the the solar farm to be commissioned in the second half of 2024, and the wind farm before July 2025.

Zenith Energy is also running the Kathleen Valley project, as well as Bellevue Gold’s namesake mining project as it targets a mining sector keen to burnish its social licence, save money on fossil fuels by switching to renewables, and satisfy the growing low carbon supply chain demands of its major customers.

The Kathleen Valley generator is one of the largest off-grid hybrid renewable microgrid in the country, with 30MW of wind and 16MW of solar to be supported by a 17MW/19MWh battery, 27MW of gas generation, and 5MW of diesel standby to deliver 60 per cent of that projects’ energy needs. 

The largest is Pacific Energy’s 116MW Tropicana hybrid system that was announced in June last year.