Fortescue announces commissioning of a 100 MW solar farm in the Pilbara

Mining giant Fortescue Metals Group has begun commissioning its 100 MW solar farm at the North Star Junction south of Port Hedland in Western Australia, as the company progresses toward a target of real zero by 2030.

July 26, 2024 Ev Foley

Image: Fortescue Metals Group

Australian-headquartered global mining company Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) has begun commissioning of a 100 MW solar farm at the North Star Junction, adjacent to its Iron Bridge ore mine, 140 kilometres south of Port Hedland, Western Australia (WA).

Fortescue Metals Chief Executive Officer, Dino Otranto said the commissioning began in the past quarter.

“During the past quarter we commenced commissioning of our 100 MW solar farm at North Star Junction, which will eliminate up to 180,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent from our operations every year once fully commissioned,” Otranto said.

The solar farm is part of the Pilbara Generation Project and compliments the Pilbara Transmission Project, which consists of 275 kilometres of high voltage transmission lines connecting Fortescue mine sites.

Also in the last quarter, the company began testing a hydrogen-powered battery electric haul truck prototype.

Fortescue Energy Chief Executive Officer Mark Hutchinson said the hydrogen-powered truck prototype also operated on hydrogen for the first time and will soon be transported to the Christmas Creek site to undergo site-based commissioning and testing.

Hutchinson added the company remains committed to green hydrogen.

“Our financial discipline will ensure that we focus hard only on those projects that are economic and deliver best value for shareholders,” Hutchinson said.

“We continue to progress our initial four green hydrogen projects across Australia, the United States, Norway and Brazil, which each draw on the unique strengths of the countries they are in.”

“Projects in Morocco, Oman, Egypt and Jordan will follow next, while we maintain a further pipeline of opportunities that will progress when power prices fall sufficiently to bring them to economic viability and global demand for green hydrogen increases,” he said.

Fortescue Zero green technologies also signed its first contracts to sell electrolysers from their Gladstone, Queensland facility and finalised a multi-year deal with Jaguar Land Rover in the United Kingdom to use Fortescue’s battery intelligence software, Elysia, in its next-generation electric vehicles.

The Gladstone electrolyser manufacturing facility will have the capacity to produce over 2 GW of proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyser stacks annually.

Fortescue is attempting to eliminate approximately 90% of its CO2 emissions associated with their iron ore operations by 2030, committing $6.2 billion (USD 4 billion) dollars to the plan, which will save 700 million litres of diesel, 15 million GJ of gas and avoid 3 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions annually.

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