- Anglo American plans to generate clean energy from pumped hydro storage with flooded abandoned mines.
- The company believes that this will reduce reliance on Eskom.
- South Africa plans to generate 33.8% of its electricity from clean sources by 2030.
Mining company Anglo American has plans to produce electricity from underground pumped hydroelectric storage systems that use water from flooded, abandoned mines. These systems will power the company’s local mining operations in South Africa and reduce its reliance on South Africa’s national power utility, Eskom. Pump turbines generate hydroelectricity in pumped hydro storage by feeding water from an upper reservoir to a lower reservoir. This process which can be easily facilitated by using abandoned mines, reduces the construction period and costs for hydroelectricity projects.
Mark Cutifani, CEO of Anglo American, stated, “we’ve put a strategy to the South African Government regarding wind farms east coast, west coast, and solar energy structures in the Northern Cape. Then there is the use of deep underground mines that are flooded where we can use the water as a battery. We can pump the water up and let the water run back down so we have a fully integrated system that will work with Eskom and the South African system. We think companies like ours have got to be the providers of integrated solutions.”
South Africa has a target of generating 33.8% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Currently, only 11 per cent of the country’s total energy mix is provided by clean sources.