Rio Tinto Signs Australia’s Biggest Renewable Power Deal As It Works To Repower Its Gladstone Operations
The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release from Rio Tinto.
These three paragraphs outline the deal.
Rio Tinto has signed Australia’s largest renewable power purchase agreement (PPA) to date to supply its Gladstone operations in Queensland, agreeing to buy the majority of electricity from Windlab’s planned 1.4GW Bungaban wind energy project.
The agreement, which follows the announcement last month of a PPA for the Upper Calliope solar farm in Queensland, will make Rio Tinto the biggest industrial buyer of renewable power in Australia and is another major step in the work to repower the company’s Gladstone production assets – Boyne aluminium smelter, Yarwun alumina refinery and Queensland Alumina refinery.
Under the new PPA with Windlab, Rio Tinto will buy 80% of all power generated from the Bungaban wind energy project over 25 years. The project, which is currently in early development, will be built and operated by Windlab at a site in Queensland about 40 kilometres from the town of Wandoan, and 290 kilometres south-west of Gladstone, subject to development and grid connection approvals.
This Google Map indicates the position of Gladstone on the coast of Queensland.
This map brings back memories.
I had hired a Piper Arrow from Sydney and I flew my late wife via Mildura, Adelaide, Coober Pedy, Yulara to Alice Springs taking about a week for it.
From Alice, I flew via Mount Isa to Cairns, which is at the top of the map on the coast.
I remember on leaving Aloce, I asked Air Traffic Control, what time it was in Queensland. The reply was “They’re half-an-hour ahead and twenty-five years behind!”
Mount Isa was infamous on the trip, as it was there we met the only disagreeable Aussie on the whole adventure. Unfortunately, he was in charge of the fuel and didn’t want to serve us. Probably, because he was drunk.
Finally, we got away and spent a couple of nights at Cairns, where we drove up the coast and explored the Daintree.
It was then a short hop for the plane onto the Battier Reef, where we stayed at a resort called Bedarra, which was probably the most exclusive place we ever stayed.
After a few days it was back in the plane and down the coast to Brisbane. That was a strange flight, as all Australian airline pilots were on strike, so we had the airspace to ourselves. At Mackay, the refuellers were so lacking in business, they were all too happy to fuel the plane.
After a couple of days in Brisbane, we flew the plane to Goondawindi, where we picked up our eldest son, before flying back to Sydney, where we took a flight home.
It was a memorable trip and I now wish, that we’d extended it by a couple of weeks.
Conclusion
Australia is a land of boundless solar energy, which is why we went there on holiday and Rio Tinto will be doing all there aluminium smelting by the use of renewables.
I can see in the future that the UK’s boundless wind energy will attract high energy businesses to the UK.
A World First For Liverpool
This article on The Engineer is entitled ABB Grid Balancing Facility Comes Online.
This is the sub-heading.
A significant new project to provide vital inertia across the UK’s electricity grid has gone live at the Lister Drive Greener Grid Park in Liverpool.
This Google Map, shows the Lister Drive Greener Grid Park.
Note.
- The red arrow indicates the location of the pair of synchronous condensers.
- The metal forest to the West of the Statkraft site, looks like a large substation.
These are the first two paragraphs.
Featuring two ABB synchronous condensers, the facility is designed to replicate the inertia currently provided by spinning turbines at coal and gas-fired plants. This inertia is essential for maintaining the correct frequency and voltage across electricity grids, so an alternative source must be installed as thermal generation is replaced by wind and solar, which provide no inertia.
Developed for Norwegian renewable energy firm Statkraft, Lister Drive is the first project anywhere in the world to feature a high-inertia configuration that couples a synchronous condenser with a 40-tonne flywheel. According to ABB, this approach increases the instantaneously available inertia by 3.5 times, ensuring the network frequency and voltage are held stable within the tight limits essential to maintain grid reliability.
In my Electrical Engineering degree course at Liverpool University, I opted out of power engineering, as I preferred Electronics and Control Engineering. So I am indebted to this Wikipedia entry for what a synchronous condenser is and does.
Statkraft seem to be developing several of their Greener Grid Parks, in various places in the UK.
The Anonymous Widower 