Green energy venture looks to Qld with hole lotta love

Former BHP heavyweight Mark Swinnerton's Green Gravity is eyeing mine sites throughout Queensland as candidates for its energy storage technology post-closure. With the promise of clean energy and a route to repurpose sites that may otherwise become a liability, it is a potential 'win-win' situation in a state where he says the company has found a proactive attitude from government when it comes to dealing with former mines. Green Gravity’s energy storage system moves heavy weights vertically in legacy mine shafts to capture and release energy. Related: Green Gravity homes in on Mount Isa power potential Mr Swinnerton, who is Green Gravity's founder and chief executive officer, said the company believed Queensland presented a wonderful opportunity to 'move the dial' on this. Green Gravity founder and chief executive officer Mark Swinnerton. In addition to plans to harness shafts in Mount Isa after Glencore winds down its copper mining operations there, he said the company was involved in discussions in the Bowen Basin and was having 'very good engagement' with the Queensland Government about multiple regions throughout the state. "There are well in excess of 10,000 legacy mines in Queensland and we're engaged on several basins through the state, a very early stage assessment to understand what's the right priority approach for us when we do enter Queensland," he said. Those sites include mines that have been long abandoned and present a rehabilitation liability. But Green Gravity views mines that are going into closure or have recently closed as the lowest-risk sites to commercialise as a starting point. "And so Mount Isa is a really prime location for that reason," Mr Swinnerton said. "The mines are in good condition and they're easily accessible and connected to grid. "As the technology matures, we're quite sure that we can then expand that to sites that have been closed for a longer period of time. But we think that's probably priority two, versus priority one of sites that are in closure now. And there's many of those around the country." Green Gravity has partnered with BlueScope Steel to create The Gravity Lab in Port Kembla for research and development. (Image at top of page) Mr Swinnerton said it was planning to test the technology in a mining environment next year. The Green Gravity technology can store in the order of 100 megawatt hours (MWh) of energy for one mine shaft. Green Gravity’s energy storage system moves heavy weights vertically in legacy mine shafts to capture and release the gravitational potential energy of the weights. It draws on renewable energy to lift weights to the surface and generates power when needed by lowering them. In comparison, Australia's first big battery, the Hornsdale Power Reserve, had a capacity of 100 MW/129 MWh when it was built in South Australia in 2017. It was the largest lithium-ion battery in the world at the time and has since been expanded to 150 MW/194 MWh. "One hundred megawatt hours of storage for a shaft means that you can firm quite a lot of solar energy," Mr Swinnerton said. "You can dispatch 10 megawatts for 10 hours, as an example. So that's the kind of scalability we could talk about with a single mine shaft." The technology was showing itself to be effective in mid and long-duration applications, which was a key gap in the market for the next period of the energy transition, he said. "So today we are seeing the lithium-ion batteries continue to come into the market and work on the short-duration challenge, which is sort of the one to four-hour battery duration to manage short-term volatility," he said. "What we haven't seen is many technologies coming through to maturity yet for the mid and long-duration needs ... the eight to 12 hours, the ability to get us through the night or through the seasonality factors. "That really today is just pumped hydro, and we know there's a lot of challenges with scaling the pumped hydro. "And so I think our technology is going to play a really important role in the ability to firm energy through the night and to firm the renewable energy as we get into the next stage of the transition." Each gravity system is expected to cost about $60 million to bring online. In the case of Mount Isa, the company was looking at rolling those out over a period of time, extending the project construction phase and creating a stable platform of jobs, Mr Swinnerton said With 16 access or ventilation shafts no longer required for mining operations, Mr Swinnerton said many would be suitable for the Green Gravity technology. He said the company was engaged in an open and constructive dialogue with Glencore. "We've certainly been proactively discussing with them what they see the future of the site being and that we remain a clear option for post-closure. And we are waiting to see their regulatory engagements and final processes," he said. The Wollongong-based firm was recently named on Cleantech Group’s 2024 Cleantech 50 to Watch list. You may also like: https://industryqld.com.au/making-the-most-of-post-mining-holes-in-the-ground/

Green energy venture looks to Qld with hole lotta love

Industry Queensland

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