The demand for temporary power continues to grow and, as most mining sites are off-grid, energy solutions need to be flexible. Additionally, commercial pressures create an expectation that the mines will start generating revenue as early as possible, while simultaneously limiting their costs.
Traditional temporary power providers have come a long way in addressing these challenges, offering flexibility while designing tailor-made solutions, with CAPEX and OPEX costs in mind. To date, these solutions have been limited to fossil fuel- based technologies, which are subject to growing political, social and environmental challenges as well as the volatile costs of diesel and gas.
5B’s MAVERICK offers a unique solution to these challenges by leveraging the low cost of solar panels in a flexible, ground-mount design. Originally developed forspeed, ease of deployment and low cost, MAVERICK is ideal for temporary sites since its deployment involves minimal onsite work and is an easily reversible process.
Through its prefabricated, modular and re-deployable design, MAVERICK elevates the value proposition of a traditional solar array. Rather than being limited to a fixed asset classification, requiring long-term, restrictive off-taker contracts to be in place, 5B’s solar array introduces a level of flexibility that enables new financing structures.
“Matching the flexibility of a diesel generator with low-cost solar energy.”
Simply put, the value of a solar system can be considered separately to the length of a specific project; the cost of a MAVERICK system is amortised across the life of the solar system, which can be used over the duration of several mining or exploratory projects. This is best demonstrated in Figure 1 – whereby the cost of energy in $/MWh is plotted against a solar system’s design life – circa 25 years.
Fig. 1: MAVERICK Flexible Solar – Lowest cost of energy vs project duration
Considering three sources of energy
Traditional fixed-axis solar is a cost-competitive source of energy over a solar system’s design life of 25+ years, as the solar system and its construction costs are amortised over the project duration. However, the design of a fixed-axis solar system makes it nearly impossible to redeploy to another site. The result is that the entire cost of a fixed axis solar system needs to be amortised over the duration of a single project – regardless of its duration. This renders fixed axis solar systems cost prohibitive for shorter duration projects.
Traditional diesel genset power is the lowest cost source of energy over a short period of time, 3-6 months, due to the relatively low CAPEX costs of the diesel generator, combined with its purpose as a re-deployable product. However, as the duration of a project increases, the high OPEX costs of diesel and the O&M requirements of a combustion engine, combined with the ever-increasing social, political and environmental challenges of carbon-fueled power sources, results in an exponential increase to the system’s costs.
MAVERICK flexible solar combines the benefits of inexpensive solar PV with the flexibility of a diesel generator through its re-deployable design. This allows the system to be amortised over its entire design life, adding only a remobilisation cost to each additional site. Additionally, MAVERICK’s re-deployable design ensures that this process is simple, fast and inexpensive. The result is that a MAVERICK flexible solar system can generate power across multiple projects; offering the lowest cost source of energy for projects with a duration of 1-15 years.
Solar power on its own is not a complete power solution, but rather, is a part of a broader hybrid solution. 5B has developed several ownership and service contracts with partners that utilise the flexibility of OPEX payments, as opposed to significant CAPEX outlays. These include a lease-to-own model whereby 5B can commercially and technically support traditional temporary power providers as they transition to offering and owning hybrid power solutions.
