Granny Smith’s day in the sun: Gold Fields expands solar farm

Gold Fields will be more than doubling the capacity of the solar farm at its Granny Smith mine in Laverton WA, with completion scheduled early next year.

The gold mine’s hybrid system, comprising 8MW on-site solar, a 2MW battery power system and gas plant, generated 7% of its electricity supply from renewables in CY23.

Now, in a continuous bid to reduce the mine site’s energy costs and carbon intensity, Gold Fields will expand solar capacity at Granny Smith to a total of 19MW, an increase of 11MW, enabling 21% of the mine’s energy requirements to be generated by renewable resources.

Granny Smith general manager Mark Glazebrook comments on this.

“The expanded hybrid power station not only makes our operation more cost efficient and improves energy reliability, it also demonstrates our commitment to accelerate renewable usage across all Gold Fields sites,” he said.

“This is a great step forward in Granny Smith’s decarbonisation journey as we seek to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and deliver on our ESG commitments.”

Aggreko is the builder and operator of the solar farm, with its APAC managing director George Whyte saying the company is focused on efficiency and reliability in line with the power demand over the life of the mine, as well as contributing to the decarbonisation of the region.

“Aggreko is also on track to achieve our own decarbonisation targets, which are driven by investments in skills development and community support, alongside a commitment to ethical and transparent business practices,” he said.

The Agnew mine in WA is Gold Fields’ flagship renewables mine and one of the first gold mines in the world to generate over half its electricity requirements from renewable sources.

In February this year, the Gold Fields’ Board approved the construction of a solar and wind plant at the St Ives mine, also in WA; when completed, up to 73% of the mine’s electricity is expected to be sourced from renewables.