HARMONY Gold plans to install 100MW of renewable power in two years following the South African government’s decision to lift the threshold for unlicensed embedded electricity, said BusinessLive citing the gold producer’s executive in charge of sustainable development.
The renewable power plan was part of the group’s environmental, sustainability, and governance strategy in which it also redoubled its efforts to improve mine safety as well as the support of the communities in which it operates.
The Department of Mineral Resources & Energy this month sprung a surprise agreeing to increase the threshold after earlier saying it had support for keeping it at 10MW. The lift in the threshold means industry can build its own power facilities without the lengthy process of submitting an application to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).
Harmony’s Melanie Naidoo-Vermaak said once the company had reached 100MW of self-generated power it would consider adding a further 120MW of power using solar, wind and liquefied natural gas. That was provided the scheme can gain access to Eskom’s grid to move electricity around the country, said BusinessLive.
Harmony’s foray into solar energy will be built in three equally sized phases, with the first to start construction this year, said Naidoo-Vermaak. “We … have an ambitious pipeline of renewables at various stages of development,” she said. Harmony hoped to source around half of its power requirements independently of the state-owned power utility.
The Minerals Council SA, an industry body group, has estimated there are R27bn worth of energy projects with 1.6GW of capacity in the mining industry alone that could be unlocked by the 100MW threshold.
