Displaying items by tag: Electricity

Malaysia/Singapore: Pan-United Corporation has signed a new contract with renewable power provider Cleantech Solar. With the support of Keppel, Keppel Asia Infrastructure Fund and Shell Singapore, the partners will install 900 solar panels at Pan-United Corporation sites, including its Johor slag grinding plant in Malaysia. The building materials producer is executing the project as part of an existing three-year memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Shell Singapore for the decarbonisation in the built environment. Commissioning of Pan-United Corporation’s new solar power capacity is scheduled later in 2024.

Pan-United Corporation CEO May Ng said “We are delighted that our partnership with Shell has advanced our efforts to adopt renewable energy solutions, which are crucial in reducing our operational carbon emissions. Industry partnerships to leverage collective strengths is a sure way to decarbonisation. Solar deployment in collaboration with Cleantech Solar supports our efforts in contributing to the sustainability goals under the ‘Energy Reset’ pillar of the Singapore Green Plan 2030 and brings us closer to our sustainability target of becoming a carbon-neutral ready-mix concrete company by 2050.”

Europe/India: Finland-based Betolar has secured EU-wide and Indian patents for a new waste-based alternative concrete produced without cement and capable of storing energy. Betolar said that the material, which is already patented in Finland, is especially suited for use in renewable energy infrastructure, where it can provide a storage solution for dealing with short-term peaks. Chief commercial officer Ville Voipio said that the company will now seek to establish a partnership for commercialisation of its new alternative building material.

Betolar produces and markets the Geoprime additive used to produce cement-free concrete from supplementary cementitious materials, including ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS), in regions that include India and the EU.

France: Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies has commissioned its H2 plant, a 1000t/day clinker-free cement plant, adjacent to its existing H1 clinker-free cement plant in Bournezeau, Pays de la Loire. L'Usine Nouvelle News has reported that the new plant took 24 months to build and cost Euro22m. The main part of the plant consists of a 70m tower, where activated clay, ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) and gypsum are mixed to produce the cement. It is installed with solar panels capable of supplying 50% of its energy consumption. The producer says that its clinker-free cement has over 90% lower CO2 emissions than cement produced with ordinary Portland cement (OPC). It aims to sell 24,000t of the product throughout 2023.

Democratic Republic of Congo: According to Agence France Presse, a lack of electricity is hindering the Democratic Republic of Congo's mining and slag sectors.

In Katanga's regional capital Lubumbashi, power cuts regularly shut down the furnace at the STL plant that extracts cobalt, copper and zinc oxide from a nearby mountain of slag. It takes 34MW of electricity for the site's furnace to operate at full capacity, but the DR Congo's national power company Snel is only supplying 24MW. "We are living in a situation of continual stress and it's hell," said Jean-Pol Tavernier, STL's maintenance director. Worse still, according to Tavernier, are the outages that disrupt production, sometimes several times a day, for up to seven hours. "Electricity began to become a problem during the mining boom of 2006 - 2007," said Tavernier. "It kept getting worse until becoming really catastrophic in 2012."

The lack of power has forced Chinese company CDM to cut 300 jobs. "We can't work with the little power we have," said CDM's director in Katanga, Akili Peter. "This is what forced us to shut down the four furnaces and lay off all those people working with us."

The Democratic Republic of Congo's mining sector had been enjoying a renaissance amid an influx of foreign investors and high commodity prices since it adopted a new mining code in 2002. However, the country's mining sector lacks about 600MW of electricity according to Ben Munanga, director of energy and infrastructure at the Kazakh group ENRC, who deals with mining energy issues on the country's Chamber of Business. The problem is that the age and poor maintenance of the power stations do not allow state-owned Snel to meet electricity demands. In 2013 it generated about 1500MW of electricity despite an installed capacity of nearly 2450MW.

The head of the Snel's grid in Katanga, Jean Marie Mutombo Ngoie, said that the supply problem was just temporary. "We think that within a year we'll be able to increase power," said Mutombo Ngoie, citing renovations of the power stations that serve mining companies as a reason for his optimism. "However, that won't absorb the entire deficit. We need new production, that is the pressing need."

Some mining companies in the Democratic Republic of Congo are installing generators to alleviate their power problems, while others import electricity from Zambia, both expensive options. In partial response, the government issued a decree in April 2015 exonerating mining companies for four years from customs duties and sales tax on imported electricity and foreign equipment purchased to generate power.