Early engineering work has begun on a hybrid power plant project at a uranium mine in the Republic of Niger.

Construction has started on BHP’s “first off-grid large-scale renewable energy project”, totalling 38 MW of solar power and a 10.1MW/5.4 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS), at two nickel mines in Western Australia which supply Tesla for use in electric vehicle (EV) batteries.

A battery energy storage system paired with a new solar project will be installed at an off-grid mine in the Australian state of Queensland to help the site reduce diesel use.

Wärtsilä has been awarded a contract to deploy a battery storage system at a gold mine in Australia, marking the company’s first ESS project in the country.

Solar and solar-plus-storage systems will be installed at two nickel mines in Western Australia for BHP, a supplier to Tesla, while a Rio Tinto ilmenite mine in Madagascar will be powered by a solar-wind-storage hybrid plant.