The economic feasibility of renewable energy for off-grid mining deployment

• We report the economic feasibility to use renewable energy in a mining deployment in a remote area.
• We separate the residence area from the processing plant to compare alternatives for each case.
• We consider energy efficiency measures to optimize energy consumption in the residential area.
• We vary the capacity of the renewable power arrays to determine their optimum.
• We vary the renewable system's conditions to assess its optimality to supply the energy demand.

As renewable energy technologies emerge, it is important to determine the economic feasibility of introducing such technologies at mines. We present a case study of a mine in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, where extreme climatic conditions exist. It was determined that nearly 47,500 L of diesel could be saved annually during the exploration phase with the proposed installations applied in the residential facility of the mine. This represents a savings of approximately 10% in diesel consumption relative to the base case. Solar thermal technologies also were considered for the residential facility, with a payback period of approximately 5 months. Simple energy efficiency strategies can have a payback period as short as 2.3 months. Reductions in energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions are estimated at 25% by pursuing the proposed efficiency strategies. If the mining company invests in wind turbines for the processing plant, approximately 35 million litres of diesel could be saved annually during the extraction phase. In addition, 9.7% of the carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced during the exploration phase and 50% during the extraction phase by utilizing renewable energy sources.