Anglo American has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with French renewable energy independent power producer, EDF Renewables, to work together towards developing a regional renewable energy ecosystem (RREE) in South Africa. The ecosystem is expected to be designed to meet Anglo American’s operational electricity requirements in South Africa through the supply of 100% renewable electricity by 2030.
In a statement, the mining giant says it has already secured 100% renewable electricity supply for all its operations in South America, this will result in a 56% reduction of its global grid electricity supply by 2023.
“We are targeting carbon neutrality across our operations by 2040 and we are making good progress. Today’s announcement is a further major step towards addressing our on-site energy requirements – the largest source of our operational emissions,” said Mark Cutifani, Chief Executive of Anglo American.
“Our partnership with EDF Renewables to address our Scope 2 footprint in South Africa complements our FutureSmart Mining programme’s abatement of our Scope 1 emissions through low and zero emission technologies, including our hydrogen haul truck system, and the development of South Africa’s Hydrogen Valley. Step by step, we are changing the very nature of mining and how our stakeholders experience our business – while supporting a Just Transition,” added Cutifani.
Increasing South Africa’s grid supply resilience
The mining firm anticipates that the RREE will draw on South Africa’s natural renewable energy potential to develop a network of on-site and off-site solar and wind farms, amongst other opportunities, offering 24/7 renewable energy to its operations. Anglo American expects that a number of partners will provide equity financing for the RREE, in addition to the RREE attracting debt financing that is typical for high quality energy infrastructure projects.
The partnership is expected to bring a host of benefits to South Africa and the region, including development of 3-5 GW of renewable electricity (solar and wind) and storage over the next decade, thereby increasing total grid supply resilience. The projects will also support the decarbonisation initiatives of governments across Southern Africa, and stimulate the development of new economic sectors, local production and supply chains.
EDF Renewables CEO, Bruno Bensasson celebrated the deal saying it is in line with EDF Group’s CAP 2030 strategy, which targets to double its net renewable installed energy capacity worldwide (hydropower included) from 28 GW in 2015 to 60 GW by 2030.
The powering of Anglo American’s South Africa operations will help it get closer to meet its target to become carbon neutral globally by 2040. Anglo says its development of a regional renewable energy ecosystem (RREE) in South Africa will aid the country’s decarbonisation ambitions and the country’s Just Energy Transition goals.
