TIME, MONEY AND OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY While South Africa’s mining sector has focused on reducing its energy consumption since 2008’s power crisis, Hugo du Plessis, energy optimisation specialist for Siemens, says there is still room for improvement. The time for significant investment to further improve energy effi ciency and generate your own energy resource (from process heat/steam) is now, he tells LAURA CORNISH. S iemens, the global electrification powerhouse, is on a major drive to promote and encourage energy effi ciency within the mining sector. “Energy saving and power reduction concepts are easy to outline theoretically, but implementing them and physically achieving results is not,” says Du Plessis, whose recent work background entailed process and energy audits for Anglo American Platinum. And South Africa desperately needs to start realising and achieving energy savings to help alleviate the country’s power crisis, he continues. “Mines need to start looking above the low hanging fruit. Bigger energy savings do require greater cash investments, but the rewards and savings are quantifiably higher as well.” would be extremely effective for helping drive awareness within the major industrial sectors as well. “Coupled with awareness is the understanding that energy consumption can only be fully improved by learning what the baseline energy expenditure on site is as a starting point. Only once this has been determined can one effectively determine how to start load shifting. This is Siemens’ approach to assist any client,” he highlights. It is also important to note that no ‘one size fits all’ approach can be applied either – across multiple operations. “Reducing energy effectively has to be evaluated from the start for every application, for every process and for every Maximising benefits Eskom has been very effective in its campaign to educate South African citizens on dropping their energy consumption at home and Du Plessis believes a similar campaign 46 MINING REVIEW AFRICA | FEBRUARY 2015 mine. You simply cannot generalise energy effi ciency practices.” “Siemens is a leader in power generation and savings and can help the mining sector effectively improve its energy effi ciency and decrease its energy Did you know? In 1897 Siemens supplied the first electric locomotives to Transvaal Golf Mining Estate in Pilgrims Rest. This subsequently positioned the company to help industrialise South Africa’s mining industry by increasing the speed with which ore was moved from the pits, thereby igniting “a more effi cient gold rush”. The company aims to position itself similarly within the energy sector.