Australian Potash Ltd's (ASX:APC) FEED Study has demonstrated the benefits of implementing Australia’s first high penetration renewable power solution on a greenfields SOP minerals project development
The study has been finalised for the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) of the renewable power solution for the Lake Wells Sulphate of Potash Project (LSOP) in Western Australia.
Highlights include a base case renewable power penetration rate of 53% with the potential to rise to 87%, a 50% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions compared to the DFS hydro-carbon power solution base case and 300% more carbon emissions produced from Mannheim (industrial) SOP production than the LSOP on an equivalent basis.
This work positions LSOP as the lowest CO2 emitting potash project development in Australia.
Renewable power solution
Managing director and CEO Matt Shackleton said: “Solar-SOP projects naturally sit at the lower end of the carbon emissions curve by virtue of the natural evaporative process involved, and we challenged our project team to model a renewable power solution to maximise the LSOP’s long-term environmental sustainability.
“We are running competitive tendering processes for the eight packages of work defined to develop the LSOP, and bids have been received for the Power Station EPC package.
“This package was scoped to include renewable power generation, battery storage and an LNG backup reserve.”
“Bids exceeded design criteria”
Shackleton continued: “Very pleasingly, these bids exceeded our design criteria both in terms of the rate of penetration of renewable power and the impact that the renewable power solution has on reducing the LSOP’s carbon emissions.
“The LSOP will produce SOP into that lowest quartile, and will also be one of the lowest carbon footprint potash projects globally.
“The company is pursuing organic certification for the suite of products to be produced at the LSOP, which will truly make the K-BriteTM branded SOP long-term environmentally sustainable.”