Australian Solar Developer’s Modular Solar Tech to Power Lithium Mine Project

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Australia based solar energy technology developer 5B has said that it will be partnering Zenith Energy to develop the Kathleen Valley Lithium project in Western Australia. The solar project will supply green energy to the biggest battery metals mines. The project will be powered by 5B Maverick technology- a ground mount solar solution designed to be safer, more cost effective and faster to deploy for offgrid, commercial and industrial, and large-scale solar power generation. 5B calls it far higher compared to traditional single axis solar trackers or comparable solar racking solutions.

This is the largest order that 5B has bagged till date for the PV component of a 95 MW hybrid microgrid in the project. Liontown Resources’ Kathleen Valley Lithium project will be an amalgamation of 30 MW wind turbines, 16 MW solar, 19 MWh BESS and synchronous condensers.

5B also holds that it is one of the key objectives to enable the mining and likewise heavy industries that are considered the biggest polluters, to decarbonize their operations with ease. Zenith and Liontown announced the development of a microgrid last September. 5B has been chosen by the developer for solar PV installation owing to its Maverick technology.

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5B maverick technology

In the new technological scheme, each 5B Maverick array consists of up to 90 solar panels, mounted on specially designed racks, and optimised for the workhorse 540-550W module class of the utility scale solar industry.

5B Maverick is said to be completely prefabricated, plug and play solar farm in a box. 5B says that Maverick blocks are first pre-assembled and pre-wired in a factory. It is then packed vertically so that four blocks can be fitted into a standard 40 foot shipping container. The total weight is kept under a maximum 6 tonne payload.

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When this container reaches the solar construction site, the 5B Mavericks blocks can be unloaded and expanded into a ground-mount East-West solar array. This, 5B says, requires minimal ground penetration and no need for cable trenching or major ground work requiring fewer people are on-site.

Swift journey 

The fast Maverick Technology of 5B will be employed by Zenith for its solar portfolio of more than 400 MW in Australia. The technology innovator has support from oil major BP, ex-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and millionaire Simon Holmes.

5B has already delivered 60MW of solar installation. This includes a 10.6MW solar project in the Atacama Desert of Chile. The company is already named as the preferred supplier for Sun Cable solar farm that will be of mammoth 20GW.

Hamish Moffat, MD & CEO, Zenith, said, “5B has demonstrated that it has the potential to get the Kathleen Valley site to full solar PV generation capacity three months ahead of conventional single access tracker solutions with the potential to save more than 60% of the man hours required on site. This is creating a faster pathway to market for solar PV renewable energy generation assets.”

5B will begin deployment of the Maverick array systems in coming June for the Kathleen Valley Lithium Project. The project will be complete and operational by mid-2024.