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Gold Fields' South Deep mine in Gauteng is in the process of finalising and commissioning its own solar plant to boost its energy reliability.
Construction is complete on the 50MW Khanyisa solar plant. Now the commissioning process involves balancing supply and demand for self-generated electricity to optimise the plant and ensure maximum benefit.
The R715 million solar plant will enhance sustainability at the gold mine and contribute to the mining company's net-zero commitments. South Deep currently consumes around 494GWh of electricity annually. This represents 10% of the mine's annual cost and 93% of its carbon emissions.
The solar plant can generate 50MW or 103GWh/year. This should have a major benefit for the mine and mitigate its negative impact on the environment by:
Martin Preece, Executive Vice President of Gold Fields South Africa, said the solar plant would, in time, be expanded to 60MW. "South Deep has made significant strides towards delivering sustainable performance, and we will continue to work towards positioning our mine for the future of our people, our communities, our stakeholders and our shareholders,"said Preece.
Embedded generation at mines could significantly change SA's energy mix
A recently released report by PwC – SA Mine 2022: Level up or reset – pointed out that in 2021, up to 81% of SA's electricity was coal-powered. Considering that up to 60% of the energy used in the mining sector comes from electricity, "the issues of decarbonising as well as sustainable and reliable power supply are directly connected".
According to the report, the Minerals Council of South Africa has indicated that mines in South Africa are chasing a target of 5.1GW of renewable energy by 2025.
Considering annual capacity factors of 35.2% for wind, 37% for CSP and 26.4% for solar PV, 5.1GW of installations, with a weighted average of these capacity factors, would translate to an effective supply of only 1.7Gw of dispatchable power, says the PwC report. This is in contrast to the professional services company's own modelling, "which indicates on current trends a peak supply gap of dispatchable power of up to 7GW by 2025.
"To fill this gap, an estimated 21 GW RE installed capacity is required by 2025, significantly above the current available pipeline of new build projects nationally and indicating a large gap that the mining sector can help to close,"reads the report.