Rio Tinto to drive development of Australia’s largest solar farm at Gladstone

Rio Tinto will drive development of Australia’s largest solar power project near Gladstone, after agreeing to buy all electricity from the 1.1GW Upper Calliope Solar Farm to provide renewable power to Rio Tinto’s Gladstone operations. The agreement will bring more renewable power into one of Australia’s most important industrial hubs and marks another step towards Rio Tinto’s climate goal of halving its global Scope 1 & 2 carbon emissions this decade. If combined with more renewable power and suitable firming, transmission and industrial policy, it could also provide the core of a solution to repower Rio Tinto’s three Gladstone production assets – the Boyne aluminium smelter, the Yarwun alumina refinery and the Queensland Alumina refinery. Under a new power purchase agreement signed with European Energy Australia, Rio Tinto will buy all power generated from the Upper Calliope solar farm for 25 years. The plant will be built and operated by European Energy, at a site about 50 kilometres south-west of Gladstone, pending development and grid connection approvals. Once approved and developed, Upper Calliope would have the potential to lower Rio Tinto’s operating carbon emissions by 1.8 million tonnes per year.