Renewable energy technologies are playing a bigger role on mine sites around the world than they were two years ago, but there are still roadblocks to wide-scale adoption, attendees of the third annual Energy and Mines summit in Toronto heard in late October.

“Mining is changing its energy mix, and renewables are playing a lead role in that change,” said Adrienne Baker, the organization’s director, in her opening in remarks at the event, which attracted 200 representatives from the mining and renewable energy sectors.

The summit showcased successful renewable projects in mining that illustrate how the technologies can be integrated into an energy plan to solve challenges in energy availability, reliability and costs.

Participants at the event, however, noted that despite the benefits of renewable energy, many in the mining industry are still reluctant to embrace it. In fact, keynote speaker John Dorward, president, CEO and director of Roxgold, began his presentation with a confession. “I am a miner and I’ve been slow to adopt the new energy paradigm,” he said. That is changing though; his company is now considering a hybrid diesel/solar backup system for its Yaramoko gold project in Burkina Faso, which is currently under construction, to mitigate the cost of diesel and take advantage of the powerful solar resource in the region.

The importance of choosing the best renewable technology that solves a mining operation’s energy challenges while using the most abundant natural resource found in its geographical location was a key theme at the event. For example, although solar is a natural choice at Yaramoko, for Western Copper and Gold’s Casino project in central Yukon, which is off-grid in a territory that is dark for half of the year, solar power makes no sense, said Paul West-Sells, the company’s president and COO, in the keynote panel discussion on mining’s new energy strategy.

On the other hand, energy in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG) transported from nearby Fort Nelson, British Columbia, on tanker trucks represented a far more cost-effective and low-emissions alternative to diesel for the Casino site, where 40 per cent of operating costs are electricity. The LNG will be stored onsite in a 10,000-cubic-metre site-fabricated storage tank to supply the 150 megawatt (MW) power plant. The company estimates the $260-million plant will be able to produce power at 9.5 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) for Casino, which has an estimated 23-year mine life.9.5 cents per KWh 9.5 cents per KWh By contrast, Yukon Energy’s cost for diesel power is 30 cents per KWh and even its hydro/wind power costs 14 cents per KWh. To reduce transportation costs, Casino’s truck fleet, including the tanker trucks delivering the fuel, will run on LNG. “Also from a social-license-to-operate-in-the-north perspective, building a 150-MW diesel generation system was not something that was going to fly,” West-Sells said.

Others agreed with West-Sells that alternative energy can represent an influential tool to gain social licence in off-grid communities. “Access to reliable and affordable electricity is a fundamental block for economic development and improvements in living standards,” said Dorward.

The recent downturn in oil prices has created a new hurdle for renewables. With oil prices in the $45-a-barrel range, mining operations are finally enjoying some relief in energy costs, but that has reduced the perception among miners that renewables can lower their energy bill.

Speakers and panelists at the event agreed that renewables can still represent significant costs savings, even with today’s low oil prices. Among these was Liezl van Wyk, who gave a presentation at the first Energy and Mines Toronto Summit in 2013 on Rio Tinto’s Diavik Diamond Mine wind project in the Northwest Territories, which she masterminded. This year she returned to provide an update on the three-year-old project.

On all counts, Diavik’s four 2.3-MW turbine farm, which cost $31 million and was installed to mitigate the mine’s diesel costs, is surpassing expectations. The project has saved Diavik $17.6 million in diesel fuel over three years, with a return on investment, despite current oil prices, expected in less than seven years. The success has been in part due to the mine optimizing the wind farm operations, including blade angle management and understanding how the turbines respond to different wind directions.

The greatest barrier to integrating renewables into mining operations, van Wyk said, is mostly “psychology” and the lack of champions within a company who can identify the opportunities and propel the project through to completion. “You need to know if you have these hound dogs in your business who will chase these things and break down the barriers,” she said, “because a lot of the barriers are actually self-created.”