In February 2021, the Province Resources Limited said it intends to develop the HyEnergy Renewable Hydrogen Project or HyEnergy Zero Carbon Hydrogen, at the Carnarvon Basin project site in Gascoyne region of Western Australia with an aim to produce close to 60,000 tons of green hydrogen or up to around 300,000 tons of green ammonia. It will be powered by 1 GW of wind and solar power capacity.
Expanding on this announcement, the gold and nickel mining company now says it has secured a SODAR monitoring station from Fulcrum3D which it will deploy on site in the next 4 weeks to enable it to collect preliminary wind and solar data every 10 minutes to assess the renewable energy potential of the area.
“The data collected will enable the proposed wind turbines and solar array network to be optimised, prior to the final project scope and scale decision point,” stated the company.
Province Resources’ Managing Director David Frances shared that basis the data collected, the company will progress feasibility studies ‘as quickly as possible’ ‘whilst also planning the initial fieldwork programs to assess the salt, potash and mineral sands target areas within the greater Gascoyne Project’.
There’s a reason why the miner is interested in green hydrogen on this location. The region holds extensive potential for salt, potash and mineral sands exploration. It plans to acquire Ozexco Pty Ltd., a company that holds 7 exploration license applications in the Gascoyne region.
“It is currently anticipated that the Gascoyne Project, should the project proceed, may be suitable to use an inexhaustible seawater resource to be concentrated through solar and wind evaporation to sustainably produce salt and potash ready to meet growing global demand,” Province Resources had pointed out the last time it spoke about the project.
The bulk of the power generated by renewable energy deployed here will be used for large scale production of green hydrogen products for domestic and export markets, and a smaller proportion (or scaled up) may be used for large energy users in the Pilbara region, including for downstream mineral processing.
Australia sees green hydrogen as a major economy driver as it can be used to decarbonize polluting industries, thereby contributing to the nation’s overall carbon emissions. In September 2020, Western Australia government solicited interest from renewable hydrogen producers and consumers to set up projects in Oakajee Strategic Industrial Area (SIA), estimating 1.25 GW of solar PV and 270 MW of wind energy potential here (see EOI For Renewable Hydrogen Project In Western Australia).
In May 2020, Infinite Blue Energy was reported to be planning a 1 GW green hydrogen project NEO in New South Wales (see 1 GW Green Hydrogen Project In Australia).
