Zenith Energy has completed a 16.9MW deployment of prefabricated 5B Maverick solar array technology on a waste rock dump at Northern Star Resources’ Jundee gold mine in Western Australia.
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The project, which involves 342 5B Maverick units, is part of an ongoing wind, solar and battery retrofit being undertaken by Zenith Energy. Commissioning of the installation has commenced that will enable integration of the new clean power generation station with the existing gas power station.
The deployment of 5B’s low ground penetrating technology on the Jundee waste rock dump continues a trend of repurposing waste facilities and idle land for productive solar power generation.
Northern Star Resources group manager capital projects Gerard Major said, “The 5B units low ground penetration technology, small footprint and high power density design enabled us to make use of our existing waste rock dump, which opens up a traditionally underutilised land resource for us to install clean renewable power stations on.”
5B CEO David Griffin said, “The strength of our pipeline continues to increase particularly as module prices fall. Module prices are well and truly at all-time historical lows. We’re seeing more instances where 5B Maverick is beating single access tracker on a levelised cost of energy basis where labour and land are constrained, and the cost of bring people, equipment, materials and infrastructure to site for projects is a challenge.”
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The renewable generation being added to Northern Star Resources’ Jundee gold mine under the Power Purchase Agreement with Zenith Energy includes 24MW of wind, 16.9MWp of solar, and 12MW/13.4MWh of battery energy storage.
It will provide on average 56% of the mine site’s current power requirements.
