Global temporary power generation company Aggreko’s installed generator capacity in African mining grew by 20% year-on-year, adding 30 MW of additional capacity in 2015.
East Africa and Southern Africa showed the most significant growth during the past year, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Africa.
“In the DRC, we saw more operational power coming on line, which involved our systems running parts of the processes at mines or the entire mine. In South Africa, demand centred on security of supply, owing to load-shedding, resulting in the installation of a number of standby plants,” Aggreko Southern and East Africa MD Martin Foster tells Mining Weekly.
He notes that, while company growth was not as high in 2015, compared with previous years, it currently operates over a much larger base and has successfully acquired a significant portion of the African mining market share.
“[Since 2012, Aggreko] has achieved a compound yearly growth rate of about 42% at its African mining business,” Foster states, adding that the continuing increase of installed capacity in Africa is testament to the growing recognition across the industry that renting power, instead of spending millions of dollars owning and operating power generation assets, makes a “huge amount of sense”.
Further, he notes that the company’s model, which allows end- users to pay a fixed monthly rate and thereby budget for the power generation needs of their mining operations, has differentiated the company from its competitors and has proven to be popular, particularly among capital-constrained junior and midtier miners.