Reduce energy costs and environmental impact of off-grid mines
Microgrid business case for mines
Power systems in mining and other industries are seeing a major structural
transformation as renewables and energy storage costs continue to decline
and global pressure to mitigate CO2 remains strong. For off-grid mining in
particular, renewable and storage technologies present an ideal opportunity
not only to improve the mine’s environmental footprint, but also to reduce
energy costs while improving power quality.
To test the viability of storage plus renewables for brownfield mining sites, we considered four scenarios that are optimized using HOMER Pro microgrid modeling software, the global standard for rapid assessment of least cost solutions for clean, reliable, distributed power and microgrids.
The scenarios compared the following benefits:
- Fuel saving and associated reduction in CO2 emissions & maintenance costs
- Reduced levelized cost of electricity with an attractive internal rate of return on investments
- Improved power quality and reliability