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Thank you MrTibbles excellent coverage of the subject.
Great to have such support from yourself and others during a difficult period.
Thank you.
From the company-
The questions about cleaning the solar panels and maintenance of the solar/hybrid plant in general, as well as the longevity of the battery power storage, are all part of the process of making this investment, with both juwi and Giza being the selected contractors, both of which have significant experience and technical abilities to build this facility.
The running and ongoing maintenance of the solar plant will be a key component of how Centamin maintain and look after all of their engineering assets. Clearly, there will be a reliance on solar experts to ensure that the power plant will deliver the power it is designed to do, and the regular inspection and cleaning of the panels is of course a part of the above responsibilities.
Regarding the hybrid battery aspect, and from how I understand it, the battery power is a back-up to provide sufficient power for when the plant transfers from solar power to fuel generated power and vice versa - the key to operating a production plant the size of Sukari's facility (12-13m tonnes of ore processed per annum) is maintaining constant power, and the transfer from one source of power to another will need back up should there be any volatility from solar power, whether it be a sudden lack of sunshine (which very occasionally happens in the Sahara Desert, which the Eastern Desert is of course part of), or other potential disruptions.
The battery power unit is 7.5MW, and I am not technically proficient enough to know how this is able to power the plant and for how long, but I am certain that the intention for the solar/hybrid plant is to be effective during sunlight hours whilst fuel will be used for the remainder of the 24 hour periods.
Also remember that solar power in Egypt is not a nascent business.
The Benban solar complex north of Sukari is in fact one of the biggest solar plants on the planet, delivering something close to 1,700 MW of power. This has been operating successfully for over 2 years now and is 45x larger than what is being built at Sukari. There is very good technical knowledge in Egypt, and this is only increasing as more projects like Sukari get commissioned. Though this is from personal knowledge, the advances which have been made in efficiency of renewable energy have been dramatic over the past few years in particular, and I have no doubt that the most proven yet most modern applications will be utilised for the Sukari solar plant.
Hope this information helps.
White vinegar is the probably the most effective glass cleaner and brilliant descaler and mould killer for the washing machine rubbers1
Also forget fabric conditioners and instead buy a pack of Soda crystals, first put half the bag in the drum of the washing machine an run on a hot cycle, washing machine id totally cleaned of all gunge, then each wash cycle put half a cup of soda crystals into the drum, this softens the water and prevents odours and limescale .
https://www.dri-pak.co.uk/cleaning-products/soda-crystals/
Very interesting Mr Bond,
With so much to be depressed about today at least informative positive solutions to Sukari problems gives us some hope .
Solar panels can be cleaned quicky with air spry such as gardeners use.
If further cleaning is neccesary water vinegar and a small amount of detergent can be used with a spray.
In desert conditions only an occasional dust removal is needed as the Eastern Desert has little air pollution.
Dust would only lose 5% and likelymuch get blown away naturally.
That happened with a dormant Mars rover, it suddenly woke up after more than a year :-)
Hi Dasut,
Thank you for your confirmation on this.
Washing a solar panel? They have a desalination plant that has good enough quality water to wash panels.
I’d be gobsmacked of no one thought about maintenance and cleaning etc. Ping and email if you need clarity- this tech is changing all the time at a rapid rate.
I hadn't even thought of that one Razor, although an equally concerning question.
With regards to your faith that they've considered it all Tony, I wouldn't count on it. The first solar project I worked on (MEP Engineer) was in Saudi for a Hospital development. 10MW installed capacity, everyone thought meticulously about how it would be integrated with the grid, battery storage and backup, life safety backup for if it failed etc. In total it cost about £15m at the time (can't remember the exact figure and I've moved on since then).
Nobody thought about maintenance and cleaning. 1 year in they couldn't work out why they were getting >50% generating from the installed capacity. Turned out the panels were not being cleaned regularly, and from memory around half of them ended up getting replaced at cost!
Fine for rich Saudi billionaires who £10m is a drop in the ocean to, not so fine for us expecting a 16% reduction in fuel costs and for whom although not bank breaking, worst case scenario $37m is not a small number.
Funny Walshe I’ve had one question that’s been bugging me for some time, it’s nothing to do with the ongoing maintenance of the solar system but power storage capacity.
I think I heard Martin Horgan give a poor account to someone regarding same.
He mentioned 8 hours, I got the impression that they have no kilowatt storage batteries and that the power has to be used nearly as produced.
I perhaps should have asked for answers.
Walshe121
I believe there was an extensive evaluation of the issues before any money was spent on this and it was to go into a lot of detail. So I think its all considered. Reminds of the solar panels at Brighton University and nobody thought about the seagulls. Tony
One question I didn't ask as I thought it was probably not relevant to a life of mine review, was about the planned maintenance of the solar plant.
With Sukari being located in the Nubian Desert those panels are going to require daily maintenance to remove dust and ensure that they are operating at their optimum efficiency. if you look it up mainstream figures suggest you lose 1-2% a day from this, but I know from practice it can be anywhere between 1-10%, and if they aren't cleaned when required the dust bakes on and has to be removed via more intensive means. Add in dust storms which can abrade the panel surfaces and cause irreparable damage and you have a bit of a problem.
A problem at Sukari is that all of the (process) water to the mine is salinated, which cannot be used for solar panel cleaning (1. because its not suitable for the panels, and 2. because even if it was, the salt then dries to the panels defeating the object of it in the first place).
With this in mind, what is their cleaning and maintenance strategy for these panels. if it hasn't been thought about as nobody involved in the process (other than the people selling you the stuff) is in the know, we could have a $37m ornament (which sadly I find is what most of these projects end up as).
There are products out there that can negate (but not remove water usage no matter what they say https://www.nomaddesertsolar.com/the-desert-solar-challenge.html). I just hope these have been considered.
as for de-salinating water to use on these, it would be a net energy defecit to do so if using our own power.