Mid-tier gold miner Pan African Resources commissioned a 10MW solar plant at its Evander mine in Mpumalanga at the cost of R150m, which started providing energy on Friday to help cut emissions and provide a stable power supply as Eskom struggles to keep the lights on.
Pan African expects to save R100,000 a day at the current electricity tariffs and recoup its investment in the 20.1ha solar photovoltaic (PV) plant in five years. The plant will power up 30% of the Elikhulu surface retreatment operations at Evander.
It estimates the switch to solar will see the mine use less power generated by fossil fuel and a 26,000 tonne reduction in CO₂ equivalent a year, which is a 5% reduction of the group’s emissions.
The solar PV plant provides a “secure and stable power supply” and covers the group from above-inflation electricity tariffs, CEO Cobus Loots said in a statement on Tuesday.
Mining companies are looking at different and innovative ways to cut emissions and fight climate change. Gold Fields announced last week it expects its 50MW solar facility at South Deep to start producing power in August and Anglo American on Friday unveiled the world’s biggest hydrogen-fuelled truck to help the global mining heavyweight towards its target of neutral emissions by 2050.
Pan African plans to build an 8MW PV plant at its mines in Barberton in Mpumalanga in the 2023 financial year and a further 30MW of solar capacity in 2024 across the company’s sites.
The design and feasibility study for the Evander plant was completed in 2019, before the water use licence, environmental approvals, consent from the department of mineral resources & energy and other regulatory approvals were obtained in 2020. The National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) granted the generation licence in August 2021.
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