Power supply
As mining operations look to offset their carbon footprint, many are turning to fl exible hybrid power plants to provide the energy they require while reducing emissions and expenses. Elly Earls speaks to James Koerting, Gold Fields Australia’s vice-president for energy and technology, and EDL CEO James Harman about why mining operators are making the move to hybrid power sources and how to manage the commercial risks involved.
sustainable way. While renewable energy sources such as wind and solar tick the final box, it is only in very recent years that technologies like solar photovoltaics (PV) have started to come down in price. Yet, renewable resources cannot be correlated with load requirements, sometimes resulting in generation being insufficient or discarded if there is an abundance. Meanwhile, thermal energy from fossil fuels is reliable and flexible but subject to price volatility and high carbon emissions. Mining companies are currently among the world’s largest CO2
emitters, as most run energy-intensive operations supplied by
Power up T
he holy grail for miners is to solve the energy trilemma: how to generate the power they need to run their operations in an affordable, secure and
power stations using either diesel or gas. However, as investors seek to influence corporations to reduce their emissions in line with science-based targets and the Paris Agreement, this is becoming a less feasible way of doing business.
As a result, more operators are putting time, investment and significant commercial risk into seeking alternatives, like hybridisation. Very simply, this means combining more than one source of energy in a power supply system, typically the augmentation of renewable energy with thermal power generation.
It becomes complex due to the variable nature of renewables and their increasing volume compared with a thermal plant. To counter this, a hybrid system
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