Skorpion Zinc Mines, NAMIBIA - Optimization of Energy Consumption

In Namibia the mining industry is one of the major energy consumers. Since energy costs negatively influence the operating costs of the mines, in particular the processing plants, they invariably result in an overall increase of production costs. A substantial part of this energy is directly imported from South Africa, the cost of which has been increasing rapidly in the past years and will most likely continue on the same path in the years to come.

Consequently, the major target of the Namibian mines currently is to address possible energy savings challenges and to investigate possibilities for the mines to generate their own electricity during peak times. This is in alignment with the mine's strategic plan and objective to minimize the total energy costs through the reduction of energy consumption from both the national and foreign power grids. We reported on some of the key energy consumption optimization challenges addressed through a case study carried out in cooperation with Skorpion Zinc Mines and Refinery. In particular, we investigated the recovery and reuse of waste process energy and the production of additional energy from solar to decrease the demand for electricity import.