Never has there been a greater need for the mining industry to adopt energy efficient measures on the journey towards sustainability and a successful energy transition for a low-carbon future, than the present.
Ever-decreasing costs of renewables and the proven reliability of hybrid power technologies, is driving mining companies towards more energy-efficient practices.
A complete overhaul of energy consumption patterns will be required for the mining sector to move towards a de-carbonised future and will require a shift in generation, transmission, distribution and usage dominated by renewable energy, e-mobility, as in electric vehicles, energy efficiency, new and future fuels, such as biofuels and demand-side management.
“The mining industry is a major consumer of energy and is responsible for more than 40% of the total industrial energy use. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the energy intensive users group alone consumes over 40% of electricity produced in South Africa. Just less than 50% of the energy intensive users in South Africa, are the mines,” states Minister of Energy Jeff Radebe.
Mines will need to rapidly adopt energy-efficient technologies, such as electrical variable speed drives, to drastically reduce energy consumption.
“Conventionally, motors run at a fixed speed, regardless of actual output requirement, wasting a tremendous amount of energy. Energy output use can be reduced by 60%, by controlling motors with electrical variable speed drives,” asserts Danfoss Drives Mining Accounts and Business Development Manager, Turkey Middle East & Africa, Stephen Brown.
Danfoss is hosting a series of informative webinars focussed on energy-efficient mining and geared towards mining engineers, specifiers, buyers, mining houses and investors. The interactive webinars will enable mining experts and learners to think differently about current energy usage and how the right drives are geared to saving energy costs.