Dumping diesel

A remote WA goldmine’s hybrid renewable microgrid has seen its diesel use halved. The project’s success provides proof of concept for turning the mining industry to renewables, writes Marie Low.

The Agnew Gold Mine, in south-central Western Australia, fills the familiar descriptor “isolated WA mining site” in just about every way. The mine is roughly 1000 kilometres north-east of Perth. It employs about 400 people, three-quarters of them contractors, most fly-in/fly-out. The nearest town is Leinster, population 700-ish – a borough established in the 1970s expressly as a mining dormitory town.

Given the isolation, it’s perhaps against the odds that, just over two years ago, Agnew commissioned the country’s biggest hybrid renewable energy microgrid.

At the time, the Agnew Hybrid Renewable Microgrid was described as a “guinea pig” project. Stuart Mathews, Executive Vice President Australasia of the mine’s owner Gold Fields, said at the project’s opening the Agnew microgrid was “groundbreaking”.

“This project has provided a framework to take innovative energy solutions further across Gold Fields’ mine sites both in Australia and around the world,” Mathews said.

So just how has this microgrid, owned and operated by power supplier EDL, performed so far?

For the full story on marvellous microgrids – two game-changing energy projects in regional Australia – head below to Cosmos 98 | Beyond the Palaeo