South African mining, industrial and construction industries services provider Provest Group has successfully established a solar energy system at its Steelpoort plant, in Limpopo province. Provest, which has a particular focus on the platinum, chrome and manganese sectors, implemented the solar power project to both boost energy security at, and reduce the carbon emissions of, its Steelpoort facility.

“Loadshedding pushed us to explore alternative energy solutions,” explained Provest plant manager Martin Kubyane. “Our reliance on diesel generators contributed to increased carbon emissions. However, we recognised that with a solar installation we would be able to secure our power supply, reduce our dependence on the grid and ensure that we can continue to meet our production targets, while also reducing our carbon emissions. As a responsible organisation, the business case was very clear to us.”

Last year, the company’s Steelpoort plant experienced loadshedding totalling 120 hours, equivalent to 15 working days. To maintain operations, diesel generators had to be used. In the process, these consumed 2 120 l of fossil fuel, which drove up the facility’s carbon emissions. (During last year, the plant generated 52.02 t of CO₂ emissions, because it used 56.545 MWh of coal-generated electricity.)

“The successful implementation of this solar project is set to save Provest more than R50 000 a month on generator hire, not including the cost of diesel itself, and offset the risk of loss of production due to unexpected power outages,” he highlighted. “Furthermore, the move to solar energy will prevent an estimated 52.02 t of carbon emissions annually, reflecting Provest’s commitment to reducing its environmental impact.”

The project was launched in June last year, with the appointment of Pienaar & Erwee Engineers to develop a comprehensive report which analysed the plant’s energy consumption and costs. This report was fed into the development of the business case by Provest and into the design of the solar energy system. In March this year the group appointed local company Rolling Snowball Holdings, to implement the project.

The solar energy project is actually composed of two systems – a 50 kWh system to power plant operations, and a 30 kWh system to power office operations. The total cost was R1.5-million and involved the installation, integration and commissioning of 128 Canadian solar panels, a 50 kW Deye inverter, six 5 kW Luxpower inverters, ten 5.12 kWh HV Deye batteries, and six 5.12 kW stage 1 Volta batteries. The system is expected to have a pay-back period of only 1.7 years, instead of the current industry average of up to nine years.

“Rolling Snowball was professional throughout the implementation and has provided us with significant after-sales support,” reported Kubyane. “From start to finish, it took two weeks to install with a total of six weeks to optimise our environment.”