Electricity + Control February 2016

TRANSFORMERS + SUBSTATIONS

I n C o n v e r s a t i o n W i t h

“And the knock on savings were outrageous. We closed a site with running costs of R150 M per month five months early. As a result, 1,4-million tons of ore were put through the mine before it was due to open – and the capital expenditure for the development of Kolomela, which was about R8,4 billion, was paid off in 24 months,” Jackson reveals. From electrical to mechanical plant? Pit dewatering at Kolomela is achieved via 16 boreholes that lower the surrounding water table. “The water is fed into an eight-million litre water tank and it is then pumped 18 km as pota- ble water to Beeshoek, into the Vaal Gamagara municipal intake at up to 1 500 m 3 /h. “While the mine had moved towards offsite modular designs with respect to its substations and MCCs, the pump house itself experienced civil delays. We had a fully functional MCC control room and all of the medium-voltage infrastructure onsite and operational, but the pump station building hadn’t been completed.

So, while massively successful on the electrical side, we were still being hampered by delays on the civil andmechanical side,” Jackson says, adding, “the budget for the pump station build- ing was originally in the order of R1,8 M, but it ended up costing well north of R4 M – and it was more than eight months late.” “Onsite construction of plant at remote mines is such an onerous thing. A project can be hampered by continuous delays, due to late deliveries of inputs, the wrong people being sent to site and a host of safety and security restrictions that make rapid progress impos- sible,” he explains. Have there been similar projects? Following the success of Kolomela on the electrical side, therefore, when another pump station project emerged, Jackson, with Kevin Hundley who was with Aurecon at that time, began to explore a similar approach. Themining pit at Sishen, which is one of the largest open cast pits in the world, is becoming deeper, so an ad-

Our innovative, custom-built mega substations, pump stations, bunded transformer bays and more redefine “completely tested and commissioned offsite modular solutions”.

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