Owned and operated by Pacific Hydro, located in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, the Ord River Hydro Project has been providing electricity to the Argyle Diamond Mine and the nearby towns of Kununurra and Wyndham for more than ten years now

In fact, the project has enabled renewable energy to become the sole source of electricity for the region – while at the same time also setting a number of benchmarks.

For starters, when it began generating power in 1997, the Ord River Hydro Project was the largest private sector renewable energy project completed in Australia. The construction process was also recognised with an Engineering Excellence award in 1996.

Today, the project remains the largest generator of renewable energy in Western Australia, generating over 200 GWh of emission-free energy each year.

The baseload power generated delivered is delivered to the two major power purchasers for the project - the Argyle Diamond Mine and Horizon Energy - via its own 132 kV transmission network.

Power Purchase Agreements were signed with the Argyle Diamond Mine and Horizon Energy (then Western Power) in 1994 with a validity period expiring in 2021. Of the two customers, the Argyle Diamond Mine represents approximately 66 per cent of load requirements.

A long history

A hydro power station was first envisioned for the Ord River region in 1963 but due to agricultural difficulties in the region, the right conditions didn’t show themselves until 30 years later.

The entire operation is underpinned by the colossal dam retaining the water of the Ord River.

Built in 1972, the dam created Lake Argyle which boasts some impressive figures of its own: it holds up to 18 times the volume of water of Sydney Harbour, has a catchment area of over 46,000 square kilometres, and is the largest body of fresh water in Australia.

The lake is regularly refilled by the monsoonal rains that cross the northern part of the country each year and the area is home to abundant wildlife including 25,000 fresh-water crocodiles.

The Ord power system is supported by fully automatic, computer-based control systems, which address power system dynamics under all operating conditions and load demands. So at all times, the Ord River Hydro Project is hard at work on a range of tasks, from helping miners uncover diamonds nearby, to lighting the local schools, to keeping televisions and fridges running in local homes.

The scheme involves many unique operating characteristics, including:

- Diverse customer load characteristics with large, random variations and substantial swing variations over a daily and seasonal cycle; - Rapid regulation of the hydro generators over their full capacity in response to customer demand; and, - Stringent quality of supply conditions under both normal and abnormal power system operating conditions. - What’s more, the project is located in a region with an extremely high lightning ground flash density and consequently is subject to a high rate of lightning strikes mainly during the wet season months of November through February.

The transmission line design incorporates a number of features intended to minimise the impact of this natural phenomena including overhead conductor shielding, continuous counterpoise earthing, extended insulator strings and single pole auto reclosure on line circuit breakers.

Breathing easy

Before the Ord River Hydro Project opened, 60 million litres of diesel fuel was burned annually to create electricity for the diamond mine and surrounding towns. Now, with energy coming from the waters of Lake Argyle, 220,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases are saved annually. Sulphur and nitrogen oxide emissions have also been eliminated.

Anyone who has travelled through this remote Kimberly region of Western Australian will know it is a place where some of Australia’s most breathtaking nature can be found. Naturally this placed a huge environmental responsibility on Pacific Hydro in executing the project, one which the company took very seriously.

Chief among those concerns was protecting the Indigenous heritage of the area. With the transmission lines crossing the traditional homelands of the Miriuwunga and Gajerronga communities, the lines were designed to have minimal visual and environmental impact.

To achieve this, extensive consultations were held with the traditional owners to protect areas of ethnographic or archaeological significance, while still ensuring the project infrastructure did the right thing by all stakeholders.

Further, thanks to the station’s operation, the volume of water going down the Ord River remains at its traditional level, maintaining adequate flow for the abundant wildlife that calls the river home.

More than clean electricity

Lake Argyle and the power plant all help to power industry and the lives of the local people, but they also generate business in other ways.

For example, the local tourism industry is benefiting, as people with boats and fishing rods are flocking to enjoy the sport and recreational opportunities offered by the lake, and local industries, like the fruit, vegetable and sugar industries, are also making good use of the regular flow of water created by Lake Argyle.

With the addition of the power station, a polluting diesel power station in the centre of Kununurra has been turned off and the region runs totally on renewable energy. Power generation costs are the lowest of any regional area of Western Australia.

Since it started operating, the project has also contributed around $12 million in royalties to the State Government.

Indeed, this is one project that is making more than just mining diamonds or turning on a television possible. And it will keep doing so for decades to come.

From water to diamonds

The Ord River Hydro Project provides all the electricity required to run the Argyle Diamond Mine - the world’s largest supplier of diamonds, producing approximately 30 million carats each year.

The company’s production accounts for approximately one-quarter of the world’s natural diamond production.

Argyle employs approximately 800 staff with the majority working at the mine site.

The diamonds produced by Argyle are found in a range of colours including white, champagne and pink. Argyle is the world’s primary source of rare pink diamonds, which have become the company’s signature stone.

Argyle is committed to a number of key priorities in the operation of the mine, including the preservation of the environment – and sourcing electricity to power this energy-intensive operation is an obvious demonstration of this commitment.