Pacific Energy, a distributed energy company, has completed developing a 61MW solar-wind hybrid renewable energy generation project to power a gold mine in Western Australia.
The hybrid power system, delivered under a new 10-year build-own-operate agreement, adds 61MW of renewable energy generation to an existing 54MW gas-fired power station at the Tropicana mine located 330km northeast of Kalgoorlie, at the junction of the Yilgarn Craton and the Fraser Range Mobile Belt.
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The mine is co-owned by global gold mining companies AngloGold Ashanti Australia and Regis Resources, which have a 70% and 30% stake, respectively.
For AngloGold Ashanti, this represents the first-of-its-kind implementation at one of its mines. The company is targeting a global 30% carbon emission reduction target by 2030.
The hybrid plant features a 24MW solar PV plant, four 6MW wind turbines and a 13MW grid-forming battery energy storage system (BESS). Combined with the gas-fired plant, Pacific Energy claims this is Australia’s largest off-grid hybrid system for powering a mine with a capacity of 115MW.
Jamie Cullen, chief executive of Pacific Energy, said that the hybrid asset had already been operating above its projected targets and commenced commercial operations in February 2025.
“The new assets have already generated over 38,000MWh of renewable energy, and that’s mostly while we were still bringing the equipment online,” Cullen said.
“We’re also on track to displace an average of more than 1,100 terajoules of gas with solar and wind-generated power every year, and we expect to almost entirely displace diesel, which is now there purely for emergencies.”
A core aspect of the hybrid project is the integration of an intelligent control solution, the BESS and virtual synchronous machine technologies. This helps stabilise the power station and replaces legacy technologies such as thermal-powered spinning reserves and synchronous condenser units.
The result means that Tropicana’s mining operations can be powered using solar, wind and the BESS for extended periods.
A rise in solar PV deployed at Australian mines
Last year, Pacific Energy penned a deal with mining company Gold Fields to deliver a 35MW solar PV power plant at the St Ives mine site, located around 80km south of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields region.
The company also secured a 20-year power purchase agreement with Horizon Power, Western Australia’s energy provider, that would see Exmouth run on 80% solar PV-derived renewable energy in the Gascoyne region.
As part of the project, a new hybrid system comprising a 9.6MW solar PV power plant, a 49.6MWh BESS and a 7MW gas power station would be developed.
Last week, PV Tech reported that Fortescue Metals Group, an Australian mining giant, had submitted plans for a 644MW solar PV power plant in the mineral-rich Pilbara region of Western Australia to power its iron ore operations.
