Australian Mining Giant Fortescue Drops $8 Billion Green Energy Hub

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Australia's Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) (East Perth, Australia) has pulled the plug on a massive US$8 billion renewable energy project in the west of the country.

Fortescue has pulled its applications for the Uaroo Renewable Energy Hub, a hugely ambitious project that would have seen the rollout of 340 wind turbines and a solar farm with a total generating capacity of up to 5.4 gigawatts (GW) supported by battery storage over the next seven years. Fortescue's parent company is the mining giant Fortescue Metals Group Limited, which is owned by billionaire Andrew Forrest, and which laid out a comprehensive renewable energy strategy to decarbonize its entire mining operations by 2030.

The hub was meant to support those goals and would have comprised a 3.33-GW solar farm and a 2.04-GW windfarm spread across approximately 10,000 hectares. The hub would also have been home to a battery energy storage system (BESS) with a capacity of 9.1 GW-hours (GWh). The hub would have been used to power Fortescue Metals Group's Pilbara mining operations via a 225-kilometer transmission line. Alone, the hub would have reduced the mining company's annual carbon emissions of 2.2 million tons by at least 1.5 million tons by 2030. Industrial Info is tracking four Uaroo hub projects worth more than US$8 billion in investment. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Project Database can click here for the reports.

The company said that it still plans some form of renewable energy project for the Uaroo region. Speaking about the decision to the media, Fortescue chief executive Dino Otranto stated: "Uaroo wasn't part of the decarbonisation energy requirement, it was more for the ammonia export requirement. As we are maturing our understanding of sun and wind intensity, you will see things coming in and coming out of the portfolio. From the decarbonisation agenda we have for metals, we have a clear line of sight of all the land we need. In fact, we have got land we have already approved, basically old parts of our mining lease that we are building on."

In May, Industrial Info reported on FFI's completion of its first in-house hydrogen electrolyser and said it will start rolling off the production line later this year from its 2-GW Gladstone Electrolyser Manufacturing (GEM) facility in Queensland. The GEM project is aiming to make enough electrolysers for 2 GW of capacity that can produce 200,000 tonnes of green hydrogen each year. The company has a target of producing 15 million tonnes of green hydrogen per year by 2030.

FFI is also active on the green hydrogen markets in Brazil and Europe. In Europe, the company has two ongoing projects in Norway, the 300-megawatt (MW) green hydrogen and green ammonia Holmaneset project in Bremanger, and there are plans for another 300-MW facility in the Hemnes municipality. Industrial Info is tracking four projects associated with Holmaneset, worth over US$500 million. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Project Database can click here for the report. Earlier this year, the Holmaneset project was one of 41 large-scale clean tech projects awarded funding from a European Union (EU) financing package worth more than 3.6 billion euro (US$4 billion). For additional information, see July 25, 2023, article - EU Awards $4 Billion To Clean Tech Projects.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking over 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 Trillion (USD).