Monitoring resources for efficiency

Melodie Michel, Reporter, Energy and Mines

Before embarking on a renewable power project, it is crucial to know exactly how much and what type of renewable resource is available on site. Fulcrum3D provides wind and solar monitoring solutions for miners to adequately evaluate the resources available to them. Paul Copestake, the company’s Head of International Markets, shares his insights with Energy and Mines on how exactly to conduct the assessment for maximum efficiency, and for how long.

Energy and Mines: What’s changed over the last few months in terms of the level of interest and engagement on the part of mining companies looking to understand the potential for renewable energy?

Paul Copestake: Interest and engagement have been ramping up over the last few months with mining companies readily embracing both the financial benefits and increased energy security that can be achieved through the implementation of high penetration renewables into their energy mix.

E&M: What are some of the key considerations miners should keep in mind early in the process of mapping their renewable energy resource?

PC: Resource assessment takes time, so the sooner you can deploy resource monitoring, the sooner you can begin planning, designing and developing your project. You cannot speed this up and will require at least one year of data, preferably more. Early resource monitoring will allow miners to most efficiently select the areas in which it is best to place turbines, and also which areas to potentially move away from.

Measuring wind and solar resources concurrently makes a lot of sense, enabling you to determine how complementary these resources are and how that will feed into your plant design.

E&M: How long does it take to get an accurate picture of the renewable energy resource potential for a site?

PC: Generally, a minimum of 12 months for wind and six months for solar. Wind campaigns need to take into account the seasonality of the resource, whilst six months’ worth of on-site solar data can generally be combined with satellite data for a fairly representative data set. If you have a good, local long-term reference, then it may be possible to confirm expected wind resource earlier.

E&M: Are most miners now looking to understand both wind and solar, or are the majority of projects still aimed at evaluating solar options?

PC: In our experience most are now assessing both resources. Any project with a mine life of greater than seven years starts to make sense for wind and most of the enquiries we are working on tend to fit that timeframe. They can often be complementary energy sources.

E&M: Who are you currently working with in terms of mining companies — and can you share any of the details of what you are assessing for these companies?

PC: Privacy of monitoring locations and security of resource data is of the utmost importance to our clients so we can’t talk about what we’re doing too much. However, in terms of users we are carrying out monitoring for the likes of Gold Fields, Rio Tinto, FMG, Province Resources and juwi, amongst others. We take a genuine interest in the desired outcomes of our clients and work to support monitoring campaigns as best we can.

E&M: What are your predictions for the next steps in mining’s energy transition — will large-scale renewables and storage become business as usual in the near future?

PC: Absolutely, the adoption of large-scale renewables and storage is now well and truly entrenched in the industry. The financials just stack up and you are now at a considerable cost disadvantage if you are not integrating them. This is true even without taking into consideration the environmental, social and corporate governance benefits that come with their adoption — they are an added bonus.