A financial investment decision by Enerji is expected to be reached by mid-2015.
Enerji, which harnesses waste heat from power generation to generate electricity, today announced that Northern Star Resources had mandated it to conduct evaluation and analysis of the potential construction of a hybrid solar thermal plant at the miner’s Jundee gold mine in the Northern Goldfields region of Western Australia.
Northern Star would supply waste heat to the plant, Enerji said, with the proposed project to include a mobile standalone organic Rankin cycle (“ORC”) heat-to-power system connected to Jundee’s baseload gas-fired generators, supplemented with concentrated solar thermal energy collected using the Solastor System.
“This is a landmark development for Enerji and paves the way for our maiden off-take agreement. The mandated evaluation and analysis phases will allow us to validate our unique technology and demonstrate the cost and environmental benefits we can deliver to remote location projects such as Jundee. We look forward to progressing discussions with Northern Star towards a commercial agreement," Enerji chief development officer Colin Stonehouse said.
Northern Star’s chief operating officer Stuart Tonkin said the miner was optimistic that the outcome of the evaluation and analysis phases "will be positive, demonstrating that the proposed project will deliver economically attractive energy at Jundee and potentially pave the way for adopting similar clean power solutions across additional projects.”
