Local firm on world stage

Photo: StruthersTech

Representatives from Indonesia's state-owned power utility PLN, StruthersTech Engineers and PT Agincourt mining personnel pose in front of the power compensation equipment upon successful commissioning.

A Penticton-designed and manufactured solution has helped a gold mine in Indonesia eliminate its reliance on diesel, resulting in carbon dioxide emission reductions equivalent to taking every car in Penticton off the road.

When the Martabe gold mine was originally built in Indonesia in 2012, it relied on 32 large diesel generators to provide 17 megawatts of electricity to the mine. By early 2016, the government had completed several hydroelectric and geothermal power plants and indicated the mine could be hooked up to the national grid.

The mine tried, and failed, several times to connect to the grid but equipment malfunctions and power failures led it to switch back to diesel power.

Penticton’s StruthersTech says they dispatched an electrical engineer to the mine site and proposed a previously untested solution using large electromagnetic coils operating at 11,000 volts.

“StruthersTech designed the entire system in Penticton BC and had the industrial computer systems assembled in a Penticton based factory,” the company said in a news release.

The equipment was installed in October 2017, allowing the mine to transition to grid power in a few days with the diesel plant placed on standby.

The switch saved the mine owners over $1 million a month in energy costs. With the project costing less than $2 million, the new equipment paid for itself in two months.

Eighteen months later, the mine has placed an order for a second “compensator,” which will allow the diesel plant to be completely dismantled.

StruthersTech says the diesel power plant was consuming 4.500 litres of fuel an hour and emitting 104,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. Eliminating its use has resulted in a reduction of global carbon emissions equivalent to taking every light passenger vehicle in Penticton off the road (estimated to be about 22,000 vehicles).            

The solution has also now gained the attention of the University of B.C. Okanagan campus, where professor Liwei Wang and Ph.D. student Yuanshi Zhang completed a preliminary study of the technology.

“The novel phase-balancing technology developed by StruthersTech has opened up a number of exciting research opportunities and potential applications in next- generation smart-grids and renewable energy projects,” Dr. Wang said.

“The effectiveness of the proposed phase-balancing technology has been further proven by theoretical analysis and extensive dynamic simulations. I look forward to continuing this research with StruthersTech as we prepare two industry whitepapers for release in 2020.”