Gove Alternate Power Generation Project

Gove Alternate Power Generation Project is an Industrial Electricity and Fuel Efficiency project located at the Rio Tinto Gove Operations, immediately adjacent to the town of Nhulunbuy on the Gove Peninsula in the Northern Territory. Registered in October 2015, the project operates within the industrial lease of the bauxite mine, approximately 650km east of Darwin. The surrounding region of East Arnhem Land is Aboriginal freehold land, primarily characterized by tropical savanna and vast bauxite mining operations.

The project operates under the Industrial Electricity and Fuel Efficiency methodology, which credits emissions reductions achieved by improving the energy efficiency of equipment or switching to lower-emission fuel sources. In this specific case, the project was initiated following the curtailment of the Gove Alumina Refinery in 2014. The site's power generation needs dropped significantly, rendering the existing heavy fuel oil (HFO) power station inefficient for the remaining bauxite mine and township load. The project involved installing a smaller, more efficient diesel power station to replace the HFO generators, thereby reducing the carbon intensity of the power supplied to the mine and the local community.

Environmentally, the Gove Peninsula experiences a tropical monsoon climate with distinct wet and dry seasons. The area receives high rainfall, typically exceeding 1,000mm annually, concentrated between December and April. The soil in the project area is dominated by deep, red lateritic earths (bauxite), which are the primary resource extracted by the mining operations.

A notable aspect of this project is its dual role in powering both the industrial mine and the remote township of Nhulunbuy. While successful in generating Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) through multiple contracts, the project attracted some public attention for awarding carbon credits to a large mining entity for switching between fossil fuels (oil to diesel) during a commercially necessary restructure. Rio Tinto has since announced further plans to decarbonize the facility, including the construction of solar farms and trials of renewable diesel.