{"id":264074,"date":"2025-11-05T10:22:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T10:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/264074\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T10:22:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T10:22:16","slug":"solar-farm-complete-at-one-of-australias-biggest-renewable-energy-projects-at-single-mine-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/264074\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar farm complete at one of Australia’s biggest renewable energy projects at single mine site"},"content":{"rendered":"

Installation has been completed of all 66,000 solar panels at one of the biggest renewable energy installations at a single mining project.<\/p>\n

The $296 million St Ives Renewables Project, south of Kalgoorlie, will combine 42 megawatts (MW) of wind and 35 MW of solar to power upwards of 70 per cent of operations at the St Ives gold mine, owned and operated by South African miner Gold Fields.<\/p>\n

It is part of a major push by miners to cut costs, and emissions by turning to wind, solar and battery storage. <\/p>\n

Many of them are off-grid, including the Bellevue Gold mine has achieved renewable shares of 91 per cent over the last month,<\/a> and the Kathleen Valley lithium mine has achieved renewable penetration <\/a>of more than 81 per cent over the last year.<\/p>\n

Pacific Energy said on its LinkedIn account<\/a> that they expect to have the solar component fully operational next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve completed all civil works and mechanical installation at the site, and with electrical work nearing completion, we\u2019re on track to begin commissioning in December,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is Gold Fields\u2019 first in-house managed renewables project, and we\u2019re proud to be their partner in delivering the largest solar farm we\u2019ve ever been commissioned to build.\u201d<\/p>\n

When operational, the solar component of St Ives will definitely be larger than another Pacific Energy project, the 61 MW hybrid power system at Tropicana gold mine in Western Australia which came online earlier this year<\/a> and is currently Australia\u2019s largest off-grid hybrid power system, which only boasts a 24 MW solar farm.<\/p>\n

Completing the solar panel installation comes only two months after Gold Fields confirmed in early September<\/a> that seven wind turbines destined for the St Ives Renewables Project had arrived at Geraldton Port ahead of a 1,000-kilometre road journey to their eventual destination at the mine.<\/p>\n

The long-distance haulage convoys, which are being managed by RJA Engineered Transportation and got underway on Saturday, September 6, were expected to take \u201cabout two months\u201d, according to Simon Schmid, principal specialise and project director for Gold Fields.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re excited to have our turbines onshore in Western Australia, marking another significant step towards delivering this industry-leading renewable energy initiative,\u201d said Schmid.<\/p>\n

Note: This story has been updated to make clear the mine is not off-grid.<\/p>\n

If you would like to join more than 27,200 others and get the latest clean energy news delivered straight to your inbox, for free, please click here to subscribe to our free daily newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Joshua S. Hill is a Melbourne-based journalist who has been writing about climate change, clean technology, and electric vehicles for over 15 years. He has been reporting on electric vehicles and clean technologies for Renew Economy<\/a> and The Driven<\/a> since 2012. His preferred mode of transport is his feet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Installation has been completed of all 66,000 solar panels at one of the biggest renewable energy installations at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,128],"class_list":["post-264074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}