Australian solar innovator and Solar Sunshot winner 5B has confirmed its largest order yet, to supply the solar component of a massive hybrid renewables and battery project that will help power the expanded mining operations of one of Australia’s biggest gold producers.
Northern Star Resources last week unveiled plans for its Kalgoorlie Regional Renewable Energy Project, which will combine 256 megawatts (MW) of wind capacity, 138 MW of solar, and 140 MW and 300 MWh of battery storage in Western Australia’s Goldfields region.
As Renew Economy reported at the time, it will be the biggest wind, solar and hybrid installation of its type in Australia, and will be rivalled – and eventually exceeded – only by the massive wind, solar and battery plans of the country’s biggest iron ore miners in the Pilbara to the north.
5B revealed on Tuesday that it has been selected by the Kalgoorlie energy project’s developer, Zenith Energy, to supply 138 MW of its prefabricated, pre-wired, accordion-like Maverick PV units that are unfolded on site using a forklift – slashing the time, labour and cost of installing solar.
The order is the biggest yet, in Australia, for 5B and – as the company put it on Thursday – cements its position as the “solar technology of choice to power Australian mines.”
“Our high-quality prefabricated technology is designed in Sydney and manufactured in Adelaide. It is a safe, fast, factory quality, and cost-effective way to install large-scale solar,” 5B said on LinkedIn.
“We are proud to supply this project, which as Zenith Energy CEO Hamish Moffat points out, is: ‘a blueprint for what modern mining energy systems should look like; cost-effective, clean, scalable, reliable and delivery of real benefits to local and regional communities’.”
The big new order for 5B’s Maverick solar units follows the company’s selection, in May, as the first recipient of funding from federal Labor’s $1 billion Solar Sunshot program.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) awarded $46 million to 5B to scale up production at its Adelaide manufacturing facility – from roughly 100kW a day, or 36 MW a year, to 200 MW over three years.
At the time, 5B CEO David Griffin said the funding would help slash the cost of the company’s technology by 25 per cent, grow its team and boost its scale. He also revealed that 5B had already received its biggest order yet, of more than 100 MW with Zenith Energy, but with no further details of the project.
“That’s a fantastic outcome. It’s the first of what we think …[will be] a significant number of large orders. So the whole grant program is proving to be an important catalyst in increasing the scale of our orders,” Griffin said at the time.
“There’s always an inherent difficulty for a technology to break an incumbency,” Griffin says. “Single axis trackers are the dominant solar array technology in Australia and around the world.
“This type of program …really helps our customers to spend that extra time to realise the commercial and technological advantages that we offer are irresistible, so they will place those orders and get comfortable with that.
“This levels the playing field,” Griffin says.
For the Kalgoorlie project, the solar will be part of a solution that Northern Star says will account for 70 per cent of the electricity demand for its Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines (KCGM) operations, which includes one of Australia’s largest open pit gold mines, known as the super pit.
Zenith Energy will build, own, and operate the hybrid renewables project, after signing a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) to supply energy to Northern Star’s Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines (KCGM) Operations in Kalgoorlie.
In addition to the PPA for renewable energy, Zenith Energy has also entered into a joint venture with Northern Star to supply 120 MW of thermal generation to support the renewables and provide backup to KCGM, as well as construct a 132kV transmission network and related substations.
Wind turbines for the project will be supplied by Goldwind Australia and will be among the largest used in Australia, measuring 150-metres high and boasting a rotor diameter of 182-metres. They will be located approximately 10-kilometres outside of Kalgoorlie.
Zenith will also source, own and operate a 138MW/300 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) to optimise the delivery of renewable energy, but has no further details at this stage on the supplier of the battery.
“This renewable energy solution provides Northern Star with cost-effective power while having the future potential to improve energy reliability for Kalgoorlie,” said Moffat in a statement last week.
Going with the flow
The Kalgoorlie grid has been notoriously vulnerable because it is located at the very edge of a long, stringy transmission line stretching out from Western Australia’s isolated main grid, and is vulnerable to storms, dust and other issues.
The WA government recently announced a tender for a $150 million vanadium flow battery to be built in Kalgoorlie to help stabilise the local grid, but Northern Star’s proposal – presented to the state’s EPA late last week – trumps that proposal both in size and scope.
Nevertheless, the 50 MW/500 MWh vanadium battery – committed to in January by WA Premier Roger Cook as part of his Labor government’s successful re-election campaign – promises to be the largest of its type in Australia, and possibly the world.
The government last week kicked off the first part of a two-stage expression of interest (EoI) for the Kalgoorlie Vanadium Battery Energy Storage System (VBESS), and got an instant show of interest from Perth-headquartered AVESS Energy.
“The Kalgoorlie VBESS is a significant opportunity to deliver a locally manufactured VFB at scale,” said Young Yu, AVESS managing director.
“AVESS is well-placed to deliver a compelling, homegrown VFB solution, backed by our worldclass stack technology and the expertise of our consortium partners.
“We will continue to work with our government and industry partners to showcase how AVESS’ VFB solution can unlock economic opportunities for the Goldfields, catalyse WA’s vanadium sector, and support the decarbonisation of our grid.”
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Sophie Vorrath & Joshua S. Hill
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