Modern Mining June 2018

feature POWER SUPPLY AND ENERGY EFFICIENCY are (from left): Bill Lytle, Senior VP Operations of B2Gold; Dr Leake Hangala, Chairman of B2Gold Namibia; Tom Alweendo, Namibia’s Minister of Mines & Energy; Mark Dawe, MD of B2Gold Namibia; and John Roos, B2Gold’s Project Manager for the solar project. Pictured at the inauguration of the Otjikoto Solar Farm

Pace-setting solar farm inaugurated at Otjikoto One of the most innovative solar energy installations yet seen in a mining application is now operational at the Otjikoto gold mine of B2Gold in Namibia. The Otjikoto Solar Farm, as the installation is known, will reduce the mine’s dependence on its existing heavy fuel oil (HFO) power plant and has already delivered savings of several hundred thousand litres of HFO since being commissioned in early March this year. Modern Mining’s Arthur Tassell attended the official opening of the facility in late May.

O tjikoto is by no means the first mine in Africa to commission a photovoltaic (PV) solar power system but it is probably the first to have a fully autonomous installation which can manage the combined thermal and solar resources available to the mine largely without human intervention. With a capacity of 7 MW, the Otjikoto Solar Farm is also one of the biggest installations of its type in Namibia and indeed in sub-Saharan Africa. The solar farmwas inaugurated by Namibia’s new – and highly regarded – Minister of Mines & Energy, Tom Alweendo, before around 120 guests. Apart from the Minister, other

speakers at the event included Mark Dawe, Country Manager and Managing Director of B2Gold Namibia (the 90 %-owned Namibian subsidiary of Vancouver- based B2Gold Corp);

Bill Lytle, Senior VP Operations of B2Gold (who led the team that built Otjikoto); Dr Leake Hangala, Chairman of B2Gold Namibia; and John Roos, Manager Projects & Compliance, B2Gold Namibia. Roos was responsible for managing the solar farm project. An open-pit operation, Otjikoto is located in

26  MODERN MINING  June 2018