Solar-Diesel Hybrid Microgrid Optimization

While mines are increasingly shifting to renewable power sources in a bid to increase mining sustainability and reduce energy consumption, many sites still utilize diesel-solar hybrid configurations. 

Mining power plants typically run with a large spinning reserve, but there is often little visibility into active plant operations and site-wide energy consumption. This impacts production uptime, specifically when energy intensive equipment comes online. When there is a lack of coordination for equipment going from standby to duty mode, sites are likely to experience brown outs due to power surges, reducing efficiency and increasing costs. 

Data from the instrumentation and sensors on diesel generators can be sent to Emerson’s PACSystems edge control and edge computing solutions via wireless connection. The edge controller can also analyze other energy consumption data from the processing plant to identify when more power will be needed. Armed with this information and connectivity, the edge controller makes step changes to the power plant through its real-time operating system. This edge control combined with PACEdge software machine learning capabilities can efficiently start diesel generators when energy from renewable sources is inadequate to meet the site power requirements. The result is significantly reduced emissions and fuel consumption in mining applications.