ERGA has embarked on an ambitious energy saving campaign – “ElectriFiciency”. Coined from the combination of the two concepts at the core of the project, “Electricity and “Efficiency,” ElectriFiciency is a five-year programme which aims to improve energy efficiency by approximately ten percent across all our African assets. This is in line with ERG’s commitment to continued sustainable development.
The aim is to improve power factor correction from ~85% to ~95%, improve currency efficiency from ~75% to 85% and introduce energy efficient equipment leading to cost savings of $2 – $3 million dollars per annum over a five year period.
ElectriFiciency is managed by an internal ERGA team that comprises staff from our Technical and Business Improvement departments, as well as from our Boss Mining, Frontier Mine and Chambishi Metals assets. Echo Engineering, an external engineering consultancy with vast experience in assisting the mining industry to achieve sustainable energy savings in operations, is conducting the audit of the project.
The project team will be looking for two types of energy saving opportunities at ERGA’s sites; behavioural and technological. Behavioural opportunities are the low-hanging fruit which can be implemented immediately, typically requiring little to no capital investment. The focus will be on changing the way people behave; for example, turning the lights off when leaving the office. On the other hand, technological opportunities typically come at a cost and with an implementation timeline to a realised benefit – a good example of this is replacing two small, inefficient pumps with one larger and more efficient pump.