Iamgold opened a hybrid solar-thermal plant at its Essakane gold mine in Burkina Faso last week. The company says the plant is the largest of its kind in the world.
The hybrid plant is comprised of two elements: a 15-megawatt peak (MWp) solar plant that is one of the largest in sub-saharan Africa, and the mine’s existing heavy fuel oil power plant, which currently provides 57 megawatts of power. The solar plant, which took 10 months to build, consists of close to 130,000 photovoltaic panels.
Essakane produced 389,000 ounces of gold in 2017. Due to its remote location in northeastern Burkina Faso, it previously relied exclusively on heavy fuel oil for power.
Iamgold president and CEO Stephen Letwin discussed the company’s plans for the solar plant at the 2016 Energy and Mines World Congress. He said at the time that hard rock mining made up 90 per cent of the work done at Essakane, a huge increase from 2012 when it was just 10 per cent. “As the amount of hard rock in the processing plant increases, so does the energy needed,” he said. The mine faced an additional challenge of being 330 kilometres away from Burkina Faso’s national power grid.
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The solar plant addition will reduce the mine’s fuel consumption by about six million litres per year and reduce its annual carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 16,800 tonnes. In a press release, Letwin called the move towards cleaner energy sources “central” to the company’s energy strategy.
Letwin said in 2016 that the company expected solar would account for eight to nine per cent of the total power generated per year at Essakane when the plant was installed.
In 2014 the company installed a five-megawatt solar plant, comprised of more than 16,000 panels, at its Rosebel open pit mine in Suriname. During peak hours the plant produces the full megawattage, and uses it all.
Iamgold worked with Total Eren, a renewable energy independent power producer that sponsored the project, and AEMP, another independent power producer, on the solar plant.
