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Energy efficiency needs meaningful data use

12th February 2016

By: Donna Slater

Features Deputy Editor and Chief Photographer

  

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A common trend in the mining industry is the misuse or nonuse of energy data, says Sandton-based sustainability consultancy Environmental Resources Management (ERM) South Africa air quality and climate change team head and senior partner Massimo Bettanin.

He notes that the majority of mining companies ERM has worked with use energy-monitoring systems – most of which are ideally suited to the task – however, in a number of cases, the data captured is not used meaningfully, if at all.

The data is reported to upper management, which often does not know how to interpret it to determine how the energy is used or to identify areas where energy could be or is being saved. Therefore, areas where energy could be saved do not receive attention and such savings are not affirmed when they are achieved.

“This is a significant area for improvement,” says Bettanin.

To rapidly enhance energy efficiency, mining companies need to identify any anomalies in energy consumption.

“Having a good monitoring system and using it in a strategic way proves to be a fundamental tool to verify any improvements achieved,” he emphasises, adding that verifying improvements requires trends analysis, the prompt identification of anomalies against expected consumption patterns and key performance indicators at the various levels of mine operations and management.

Field of Expertise
ERM has performed energy efficiency assessments at several mines, including underground and opencast mines, says ERM senior consultant Tim Price.

He notes that, in many of these assessments, energy use is incorrectly labelled or declared as a fixed resource, which cannot be correlated with any sort of production metric at mine sites.

“Miners believe that, regardless of the production levels at which they are operating, their electricity consumption will remain constant,” says Price, adding that ERM is trying to debunk this belief so that clients better understand their energy use and consumption.

Bettanin notes that, generally, there are two different types of inefficiencies – the operational uses of energy and how upper management perceives energy use.

Operational use of energy is inefficient when personnel, such as workers at the rock face, are not aware of the implications of the manner in which they use energy, resulting in the inefficient use of energy.

Another common practice in the mining industry is equipment oversizing, whereby equipment with higher-than-required power ratings is used to carry out a specific activity, thereby consuming more energy than necessary.

Equipment might also be operated inefficiently, such as operating machinery and/or plants beyond their specifications. This practice, adds Bettanin, is often pursued to increase throughput and uptime without having to buy additional equipment.

However, this practice can often result in the exorbitant consumption of energy and the increased risk of equipment failure on a plant. This will lead to downtime and lost production, as well as the risk of expensive repairs.

For these situasions

, there are many improvement methods and techniques, such as the enhancement of ventilation systems and compressed air use, the reduction of equipment idling and the provision of training on the most efficient operation of equipment to avoid preventable equipment failure, he says.

Upper management, says Bettanin, often has a skewed perception of a company’s energy use, owing to a lack of communication, where energy is managed by a single department without much coordination with other departments, and without a comprehensive management approach.

Edited by Tracy Hancock
Creamer Media Contributing Editor

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