Pacific Energy, an Australian distributed energy provider has won a contract to design and construct a 35MW solar farm for Gold Fields at its St Ives gold mine in the Eastern Goldfields region of Western Australia.
St Ives Renewables Project to Cut the Mine’s Carbon Emissions
The St Ives Renewables Project—valued at AU$296 million (US$198.51 million)—will include a solar farm along with a 42MW wind farm being developed simultaneously. This initiative aims to supply over 70% of the mine site's energy from renewable sources and is expected to cut the mine’s carbon emissions by approximately 50% by 2030.
“Gold Fields is taking firm steps to significantly reduce its Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030, and we’re committed to helping them achieve this. Our engineers have factored in scalability to the solar design so that Gold Fields could expand its solar contribution almost immediately if it needed to. A key lesson we’ve learned over the years is that the design needs to be flexible and account for the rapid changes we’re seeing in the renewable energy transition.” said Jamie Cullen, Pacific Energy’s chief executive.
Pacific Energy Partners with Horizon Power for 20-Year Solar PPA
Pacific Energy signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Horizon Power—Western Australia’s energy provider—to supply Exmouth with 80% renewable energy sourced from solar PV in the Gascoyne region. The project will include the development of a new hybrid system featuring a 9.6MW solar farm, a 49.6MWh battery energy storage system (BESS), and a 7MW gas power station.
Pacific Energy plans to begin civil work on the solar PV power plant in November this year, with full operation anticipated by 2026.
Pacific Energy Expands Portfolio with New Hybrid Systems for Westgold
Perth-based Pacific Energy recently completed a $350 million debt facility in April and has constructed 93 power stations with a total capacity exceeding 1.1GW, along with over 900MW under contract across various generation sources, including solar, wind, battery, diesel and gas. Among these projects are four hybrid solar, battery and gas systems with a combined capacity of 82MW completed last month for four goldmines operated by Westgold in Western Australia: Tuckabianna, Bluebird, Fortnum and Big Bell.
In August, the company added 24MW of solar, 24MW of wind and a 13MW battery energy storage system to the existing power system at the Tropicana Gold Mine located about 330km northeast of Kalgoorlie. Once completed, this enhancement will boost the microgrid's total capacity to 115MW, making it Pacific Energy’s largest hybrid investment and the largest islanded hybrid power system in Australia.
For the mine's owners—Anglogold Ashanti and Regis Resources—the new solar and wind additions will reduce diesel consumption by 96% and gas consumption by 50%. Additionally, in Gold Fields' operations, six out of ten mines and projects are partially powered by renewable electricity including the Agnew gold mine in Western Australia which derives over half of its power from wind, solar and battery sources.