Seven wind turbines worth $85 million to be installed as part of St Ives $296m renewable energy project

A wind farm of seven turbines worth a combined $85 million is expected to be up-and-running at the St Ives gold mine near Kambalda by the second quarter of next year, the director of the project says. South African mining giant Gold Fields this week announced it had awarded a contract to the Australian arm of Chinese company Goldwind to design, manufacture and construct the turbines for St Ives. The wind farm is part of the $296m St Ives Renewable Energy Project, with the other aspect being a $55m solar farm. The wind farm will aim to produce 42-megawatts of energy, and the solar farm 35MW. Project director Simon Schmid, who was in Kalgoorlie-Boulder on Wednesday, told the Kalgoorlie Miner the development made sense financially and environmentally. Mr Schmid said the project was “important” because it would mean significant cost-savings as the price of energy steadily increased, as well as meet the company’s ESG obligations to reduce its carbon emissions by about 50 per cent by 2030. The aim is to have 73 per cent of St Ives’ power generated from these renewable energy sources in the future, with the exact balance of this and the background gas varying from day to day. “The gas will always be running in the background, and as the input of renewable energy declines, the gas rises to compensate,” Mr Schmid said. “It’s a see-saw situation.” He said the whole system overseeing this constant balancing act was computer-automated. Mr Schmid said he expected the new power-generation system to be as reliable as the current gas power situation whereby St Ives was connected to the main South West Interconnected System. He said the SWIS power reliability issues, which had affected the wider Goldfields in the past, had not been a serious issue for the company, which was “fortunate”. Mr Schmid said the seven wind turbines would be shipped from China and were expected to be on site by about October. They would be spaced 500 metres apart in a north-south direction. He clarified the $85 million cost was for the turbines only, with installation costs on top of that. Mr Schmid said the wind farm project started about eight months ago and was scheduled for completion in the second quarter of next year. He said about 150 people would be employed during the peak of construction, with about 80 people working on average during the course of the project. The completion of the solar farm was expected in the first quarter of next year. Gold Fields has four mines in the Goldfields, with the other three being Agnew north of Leinster, Granny Smith south of Laverton, and Gruyere north-east of Laverton, which the company runs as part of a 50:50 joint venture with Gold Road Resources. Mr Schmid said solar was incorporated into the power systems at Granny Smith and Gruyere, which generated 10MW and 18MW, respectively, while Agnew had 35MW of both wind and solar as part of its mix. He said St Ives’ renewable energy project was much bigger than that of Agnew. However, he said this did not pose any extra challenges, as wind turbine installation was “no different” whether there was one turbine or more. Mr Schmid said Agnew’s renewable power system had been set up by another company, and Gold Fields simply bought the supplied energy, however the company itself would own and operate the St Ives system.