Mining News: Utility seeks power conservation in BC

BC Hydro, university team to launch new research project aimed at discovering more energy efficiencies in the province’s mines

Rose Ragsdale

For Mining News

BC Hydro Power Smart and the University of British Columbia are collaborating on a new research initiative that will explore energy conservation in the mining and minerals industry.

As the founding sponsor, BC Hydro’s primary goal is to identify opportunities to introduce technologies with the potential to improve electricity efficiency in the minerals industry by at least 20 percent.

BC Hydro is the third-largest electric utility in Canada, generates between 43,000 and 54,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity annually – depending on prevailing water levels – at 30 hydroelectric facilities and three natural-gas-fueled thermal power plants, and serves 94 percent of BC’s population.

“In BC, we have relatively low energy costs, but electricity consumption is still 17-20 percent of a mine’s operating costs,” said Mike Brandson, senior accounts manager for BC Hydro. “If we can help the existing mines or future mines, the savings can be millions and millions of dollars per year.”

However, British Columbia is facing a projected 20-40 percent electricity consumption shortfall by 2020 created by its existing customers getting larger and growing numbers of new customers coming on line. The province developed an energy plan to meet its future electricity needs that relies on conservation and energy efficiency as much as new electricity generation.

“Our (generation) capacity is limited by our existing facilities,” Brandson said. “As our load grows, we will have to acquire more capacity.”

Brandson said BC Hydro found that it will be less costly to buy back wasted energy from its customers rather than build more hydropower facilities. As a result, the utility has worked with its large customers, including operating mines, to conserve energy and to find ways to use electricity more efficiently.

Power Smart conserves energy

“I believe we assisted them, in some part, to continue to operate during the current economic troubles,” Brandson said. “It’s no small feat that all the ones operating last summer in British Columbia are operating today.”

The research project is the latest initiative in the province’s Power Smart objective to encourage customers to integrate energy efficiency into their ongoing business practices.

Markus Zeller, one of the project’s leaders, said the new Power Smart initiative could generate 500 gigawatt-hours of savings annually.

Project leaders began meeting with the active mines in British Columbia in April in hopes of getting them to sign on as industry partners in the research project. Beginning in June, industrial sponsors will be consulted as researchers lay groundwork for the four-year project, which will include energy audits of the sponsors’ operations aimed at identifying and quantifying major energy draws in the metal mining industry.

The researchers will then evaluate potential energy efficiency improvements for the operations that could reduce energy needs and lower operating costs. BC Hydro will look closely at the introduction of new, energy-efficient approaches for comminution (crushing, grinding, etc.) and extraction of ores to finished metal.

“Our research will identify technologies, but then industry partners would need to bring in expert consultants to continue with in-depth studies,” says Zeller.

BC Hydro hopes to make the project a true collaboration between the researchers and the miners.

Organizations will have the chance to benefit directly from sponsoring the research, helping to oversee the project and its deliverables through each stage. They also will gain access to research outcomes, methods and tools related to energy-efficient technology for the industry.

Sponsor benefits

For BC Hydro’s industry partners, the project will bring reduced costs, improved productivity and added protection against rising energy costs.

That all adds up to a significant competitive advantage, according to BC Hydro.

The research initiative, which is targeted for completion in 2013, is specifically designed to benefit those with a stake in the base metals industry, from mining to refining, especially open-pit operations with a focus on copper, gold and molybdenum.

Brandson said the research project would like to provide energy-saving benefits not only to BC’s large open-pit metal mines, including Huckleberry, Kemess, Gibraltar, Highland, Mt. Polley and Endako, but also to advanced mine projects such as Red Chris and Galore Creek.

The project aims to help address efficiency challenges by establishing measures of energy use and efficiency in mining and processing and identifying opportunities and methods of improving this efficiency, including mining and processing optimization strategies.

It also will include site-specific studies to assess the application of ore pre-concentration, high-pressure grinding rolls and/or stirred mills in reducing energy intensity of mining and processing ore; methods for conserving energy through the application of more efficient extraction technologies; and methods for the reduction of energy use in base metal electrowinning operations.

Mining companies can participate at three sponsor levels – gold (C$100,000), silver (C$60,000) and bronze (C$40,000) – and obtain a proportionate number of benefits. Gold-level sponsors, for example, will have access to all project reports, research methods, tools, and deliverables. The University of British Columbia is also offering gold sponsors a site-specific energy assessment and process optimization study to a value of $40,000, as well as site specific ore testing courtesy of UBC to a value of $20,000.

Brandson said BC Hydro would prefer that mining companies seeking to develop new mines in the province contact the utility early in the development process. “We can help them in getting connected to the BC electrical system, and we also can help with their costs,” he said.

Because of the long lead time required for ordering mine equipment, early involvement would enable the utility to influence mining companies to make more energy efficient equipment choices, he explained.

“Please call us, the earlier the better.”