The juwi Group will build the world's largest off-grid hybrid project in the mining industry with a solar park and battery storage system around 30 kilometres southwest of the Egyptian port city of Marsa Alam. The German specialist for renewable energy systems and the owner of the Sukari gold mine Centamin plc have agreed on this. juwi will plan the hybrid power plant, purchase the components and integrate it into the existing power plant infrastructure with the specially developed juwi Hybrid IQ Controller. juwi will also take over the technical operational management. The power plant, located just inland from the coast on the Red Sea, is scheduled to go into operation in the second quarter of 2022.
"We are very pleased to support Centamin in reducing its CO2 emissions and lowering the cost of electricity for the Sukari Gold Mine," says Dave Manning, Director Global Hybrid at juwi. "The project impressively demonstrates the ecological as well as economic advantages that mining companies have from hybrid projects in Africa. In this specific case, we are reducing diesel consumption by around 22 million litres per year and CO2 emissions by around 60,000 tonnes per year through the renewable share of the hybrid power plant. At the same time, the reliability of the power supply increases and the operator hedges against rising fuel prices. This leads to noticeably lower operating costs overall," Manning continues.
Reference projects perform well
Amiram Roth-Deblon, Director Global Business Initiatives, adds: "The performance of our reference projects in terms of cost reduction and environmental protection is convincing an ever-growing circle of power consumers. We are currently building five more hybrid projects on a power plant scale. In Australia, these are the projects Esperance for Horizon Power, Jacinth Ambrosia for Iluka Resources, Jabiru for the Northern Territory Government and Gruyere for APA. In addition, juwi is building a ten-megawatt solar farm in South Africa to supply its own electricity to a gold mine located around 120 kilometres southeast of Johannesburg on behalf of Pan African Ressources."
Stephan Hansen, COO and board member of juwi AG, adds: "Mining accounts for ten per cent of global energy consumption, and many minerals play an important role in the energy transition. We are pleased to be able to support the extractive industry on its path to decarbonisation with our reliable solar, wind and battery solutions."
Relying on bifacial PV modules
As with the construction of southern Europe's largest solar park in Kozani, Greece, juwi is also relying on bifacial solar modules for this project. Compared to standard modules, these have the advantage that they use the solar energy on the front and back side. This makes them more efficient and leads to a higher electricity yield on the same area. The solar power generated is integrated into the existing power plant infrastructure via the juwi Hybrid IQ Controller, a microgrid control platform based on Siemens Sicam. (mfo)
