An off-grid gold mining town in a remote part of Western Australia’s famous goldfields region is to source 80 per cent of its power needs from solar and a battery under a new project announced on Wednesday.
The town of Menzies, with 100 residents, will be equipped with a 409 kW solar array and 2.8 megawatt hours of battery storage, with diesel relegated from its primary supply to the roll of back-up.
The new system is to be designed, built and operated by Pacific Energy, which is expected to complete the project by the middle of next year. It is also upgrading the 3.6 MW diesel system at another off-grid community, Laverton.
The share of renewables is similar to that already being achieved at other off-grid and remote communities, with a number of mines (such as the Kathleen Valley mine pictured above) achieving even higher shares – up to 95 per cent or more – although these are usually helped by the addition of wind turbines.
See: Off-grid gold mine achieves record 93.8 pct renewables share over whole month
