Russian gold major Polyus is switching 90% of its energy consumption at its mines to renewables, the company announced this week.

The London-listed miner signed an agreement with Russian hydroelectric supplier RusHydro for electricity to the Krasnoyarsk business unit (KBU), powering the Olimpiada and Bagndatnoye mines with electricity from a renewable energy source.

This would reduce the KBU’s greenhouse-gas emissions in 2021 by almost half, while company-wide emissions would fall by a third year-on-year.

“This deal marks the transition of Polyus’ core business unit to renewable energy sources and represents a landmark event for our company. Climate change is a global challenge, and it is important that as a responsible business we support the decarbonisation of the global economy. For this reason, we are choosing to power our production assets with energy sources that will minimize our greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions,” commented Polyus CEO Pavel Grachev.

The agreement assumes the provision of about one-billion kilowatt hours of energy to KBU in 2021. The agreement runs until the end of the year, with a possibility of an extension.

In 2020, Polyus and RusHydro signed a five-year bilateral agreement for the sale and purchase of electricity produced by hydroelectric power plants on the territory of a technologically isolated electric power system in the Magadan region. The volume of electricity supplied under this agreement is greater than 300-million kilowatt hours a year.

Once supplies under this contract commence, 100% of the electricity consumed by Polyus’ largest producing assets, Olimpiada and Blagodatnoye, will be renewable. Based on this estimate, KBU expects to reduce GHG emissions in 2021 by almost half, while company-wide GHG emissions may decrease by a third compared to the previous year. As a result, up to 90% of the electricity demand of the company’s operating assets will now be met by renewable sources.