en.Wedoany.com Reported - The Bellevue Gold Mine in remote Western Australia has set a new record, operating entirely on 100% renewable energy for 155 consecutive hours with its engines shut down.

The gold mine, with an average load of approximately 12 megawatts, has achieved an average renewable energy penetration well above its 80% target, with monthly figures often exceeding 90% and reaching an average of 93.8% in March.

In early May, the facility operated solely on renewable energy for over six and a half days, sourced from 27 megawatts of solar power, 24 megawatts of wind power, and a 15 megawatt/33 megawatt-hour battery energy storage system that stores excess electricity and feeds it back into the microgrid when needed.

Zenith Energy, the company that built this hybrid power station, stated that this achievement is not only a significant milestone for the project but also demonstrates the feasibility of using renewable energy in remote mining areas, proving Australia's progress in this field. The company noted that the system is designed to meet at least 80% of the site's energy demand from renewable sources, and under favorable weather conditions, the actual results have fully demonstrated its effectiveness.

Bellevue Gold has already claimed to be the world's first net-zero gold mine (Scope 1 and Scope 2), though this is partially achieved through carbon offsets, and its mining equipment and transportation have not yet been decarbonized. Fortescue plans to achieve this goal by 2030 at its large iron ore operations in the Pilbara, which have an average load of 800 megawatts.

This new record for engine shutdown is believed to be the first globally achieved at a facility so heavily reliant on wind and solar as primary power sources, surpassing the achievements of the smaller Kings Island microgrid (with an average load of about 2.5 megawatts) off the coast of Tasmania.

Several different off-grid mining sites are achieving high renewable energy penetration rates. Lynas Gold achieved a record 95.7% renewable energy penetration for the entire March quarter at its Mt Weld lithium mine. The Kathleen Valley facility, operated by another lithium miner, Liontown Resources, has also consistently achieved monthly renewable energy penetration rates above 80%, shielding it from the impact of recent diesel price surges. Both Lynas Gold and Liontown are backed by Gina Rinehart, Australia's richest person and one of the most vocal anti-renewable energy activists.

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