Mining giant BHP has bought the entire output of the first wind farm in WA’s South West farmlands to cut emissions from processing nickel for electric vehicle batteries.

BHP will purchase from Italy’s Enel Green Power 12 years of power from the first stage of the Flat Rocks Wind Farm to be built near the farming town of Kojonup, 260 kilometres south of Perth.

Seven years ago BHP’s WA nickel operation was deemed too burdensome to impose on South32 when it was created to take all the other assets the mining giant did not want. A burgeoning market for high-quality nickel products to make lithium-ion batteries that justified further investment has turned the division into a still small but now wanted part of BHP.

However, electric vehicle manufacturers such as Tesla that last year signed a nickel supply agreement with BHP want all their inputs to have the lowest carbon intensity possible to add to the environmental credentials of their cars.

In February BHP contracted for 50 per cent of the output of the 132 megawatt Merredin solar farm owned by Chinese firm Risen Energy and committed to building in the northern Goldfields of WA solar farms with 38 MW capacity and a 10MW battery.

BHP expects the renewable energy to reduce the Scope 2 emissions from its nickel division’s power purchases by nearly 60 per cent from the present 550,000 tonnes a year. Nickel West also has direct, or Scope 1, emissions of 490,000 tonnes a year.

The $200-plus million wind farm will have 18 Vestas 4.2 megawatt wind turbines that with a tip height of 200m will be the tallest in WA.

Enel bought the project from developer Moonies Hill Energy, a company owned by local farmers and business people that started pursuing a wind farm for the area in 2008.

Moonies Hill managing director Dr Sarah Rankin said initially 1.8 MW turbines were considered and the larger capacities now available that required fewer turbines helped win community acceptance.