Granny Smith Gas Power Station

Granny Smith Gas Power Station is an industrial energy efficiency project located at the Granny Smith Gold Mine, approximately 25km south of Laverton in the Goldfields region of Western Australia. Registered in May 2015, the project operates within the mine's power generation facilities. The surrounding region is characterized as semi-arid to arid, featuring flat landscapes with red sandy loam soils and vegetation dominated by Mulga (Acacia) shrublands. While the broader Goldfields region supports pastoral grazing, the immediate land use for this project is heavy mining operations.

The project operates under the Industrial Electricity and Fuel Efficiency methodology. This framework is designed to generate carbon credits by upgrading industrial equipment or switching fuel sources to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Unlike land-sector projects that sequester carbon in vegetation, this method avoids emissions that would have otherwise occurred. Credits are calculated by comparing the emissions intensity of the new system against the historical baseline of the old equipment.

Specific project activities involved the decommissioning of an aging diesel-fired power station and the installation of a new, high-efficiency natural gas power station. The new plant, designed and operated by Aggreko, utilizes high-speed reciprocating gas engines fueled by the Eastern Goldfields Pipeline. This transition from diesel to natural gas significantly lowered the carbon intensity of the mine's electricity supply.

A notable aspect of this project is its role as a foundation for further renewable integration. Following the successful switch to gas, Gold Fields and Aggreko later expanded the site into a hybrid microgrid by adding 8 MW of solar generation and a battery storage system in 2019, one of the first of its kind in the mining sector. The carbon project itself was backed by a government carbon abatement contract (CAC201966) to deliver over 85,000 tonnes of abatement, which was successfully completed in August 2023.