BESS price falls, solar efficiency make renewable baseload ‘cheaper than diesel’ as 24/7 PPA inked for copper mine in DRC

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The PPA will service Komoa Copper’s Kamoa-Kakula copper mining complex, one of the largest in the world, near Kolwezi in the DRC. Its copper production capacity is around 600,000 tonnes annually, and the ramp-up of a new on-site direct-to-blister copper smelter is expected to start in Q2 2025.

The solar-and-storage plant will reduce carbon emissions by 78,750 tonnes per year by offsetting fuel generators. CrossBoundary Energy will own and operate the plant, and Kamoa Copper will pay for the energy it consumes.

Kamoa Copper S.A. is a joint venture (JV) between mining companies Ivanhoe Mines and Zijin Mining Group, and the Government of the DRC, which owns a 20% stake.

The companies claimed it is the first project of its kind in Africa. Many mines have incorporated solar PV and BESS into their operations, but baseload, 24/7-guaranteed power is rare for solar PV and BESS because of intermittency concerns, the announcement said.

“However, due to the increasing efficiency of solar PV and the declining cost of BESS components, a renewable baseload system is now viable and cheaper than the diesel generators currently providing power to the mine,” it said.

Matthew Tilleard, managing partner at CrossBoundary Energy, commented: “Africa’s most significant hindrance to growth and investment is access to reliable and affordable power. Projects like these prove that distributed clean energy can now provide cheaper baseload power, even for heavy industry.”

Franck Alloghe, business development director at CrossBoundary Energy added: “This agreement represents a change in energy supply for mining operations, indicating that diesel or HFO generators are no longer the only viable option for guaranteed baseload power generation.”

Energy-Storage.news reported on a hybrid renewables and BESS project serving a mine in Australia back in 2021. More recently, CrossBoundary Energy raised US$25 million for microgrids in Africa and agreed to deploy a solar-and-storage plant to serve a gold mine in Sierra Leone, as reported by our colleagues at PV Tech.

AIP Management has agreed to acquire an equity stake from Clearway Energy Group, in Pine Forest, a 300MWac solar PV and 200MW/400MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) project in Texas, US.

NHPC India has launched a tender for solar-plus-storage, aiming to secure 1.2GW of solar PV capacity alongside 600MW/2,400MWh of storage.

Elgin Energy has seen a 330MW solar-plus-storage site featuring a 250MW/500MWh BESS fast-tracked by the Victoria government in Australia.

Sumitomo Electric has followed up the US launch of its newest vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) technology, announcing a deal in Japan.

BloombergNEF (BNEF) has found that utility-scale BESS uptake in Australia could increase eightfold to 18GW in 2035, up from 2.3GW in 2024.