The Fekola Gold Mine of Canadian miner B2Gold Corp. (CA) in Mali is now partly powered by a 30 MW solar PV array with 15.4 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) by German project partners, renewable energy developer BayWa r.e. and Suntrace GmbH that acted as the engineering and procurement contractor for the project.
According to the team, this hybrid off-grid system will make 3 out of 6 heavy oil generators redundant during the day, while significantly enabling reduced use for remaining 3 generators. Their estimates suggest the solar+storage system will save 13.1 million litres of heavy fuel oil annually.
What they call as the world's 'largest' off-grid solar battery hybrid system in the mining industry, renewable energy from it will cover up to 75% of the mine's electricity needs during the day.
"It was a major technical challenge to integrate such a large amount of solar power safely and reliably into a small, isolated network, and it required the use of battery storage systems and a tailor-made control system," said BayWa r.e.'s project manager Thorsten Althaus.
The system was energized and successfully integrated into the existing power plant operation of the mine that operates 24 hours a day. The team is set to complete the last construction phase of the PV system in June 2021.
Dennis Stansbury, senior vice president of B2Gold that decided to go ahead with the solar and storage facility in August 2019 sees it as a 'groundbreaking' project that will pave the way for more sustainable power generation in the mining industry in West Africa (see Mali Gold Mine To Have 30 MW Solar+Storage Plant).
In October 2019, B2Gold picked Suntrace and BayWa to construct and commission the solar and storage project for its Mali gold mine aiming to help it save fuel (see BayWa & Suntrace Bag 30 MW Solar+Storage Mali Project).