Estimación del Potencial Energético para la Incorporación de energía renovable en los procesos de producción de los principales minerales en el Ecuador.

Abstract

Green mining consists of reducing the environmental impact generated by mining activities. A large part of this reduction occurs when the mine uses renewable energy to supply the energy sources to supply the energy demand of the mine (even partially). This project studied the energy potential for the incorporation of non-conventional renewable energy in the gold production processes in the Santa Bárbara Mining Project located in the province of Zamora Chinchipe. For this, an inventory of processes was carried out that allowed the flow of energy and material for the gold production. Then, the energy potential of renewable energy in areas surrounding the sector was qualitatively analyzed. Based on the analysis, the photovoltaic solar energy was chosen, as it adapts to the energy requirement of the project. The energy system was designed using the SAM software. This program estimates the surface area covered with PV required to satisfy the energy demand of the mine. It was determined that producing enough energy for all the processes was unrealistic, due to space limitations. Considering a realistic covered area of maximum 14 hectares, only 23% of the energy demand could be supplied, which could be enough to provide electricity to the Ball Mill machine, which requires 16 MW. This implies that, a part of the energy requirement of the mine can be supplied, by renewable energies.