Having recently shelved its Uaroo renewable energy hub, Fortescue is exploring another avenue for its decarbonisation plans.
The major miner has reportedly applied for tenements covering 150,000 hectares of land near its iron ore mines in Western Australia, which is intended to be used for renewable energy projects.
For Fortescue to reach its 2030 emissions target, the company estimates it will need between two and three gigawatts of renewable energy and battery storage in order to stop using fossil fuels at its mining operations.
But a Fortescue spokesperson told the Australian Financial Review that it hadn’t settled on a specific plan to reach the target.
“We continuously review and optimise the best way to achieve this objective (decarbonisation by 2030),” a Fortescue spokesman said.
“This optimisation includes both the best mix of technologies, including wind and solar, as well as the best geographical areas to install these technologies. As part of this ongoing optimisation, we have identified multiple areas east of our Iron Bridge operation that are potentially suitable to support our decarbonisation plans.”
Fortescue terminated WA Environmental Protection Authority approval applications for Uaroo in October, with Fortescue chief executive officer Dino Otranto previously suggesting the hub plans had been redundant for a while.
“Uaroo wasn’t part of the decarbonisation energy requirement, it was more for the ammonia export requirement,” Otranto said.
“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.”
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