ECO2MAN

Case study

 
Moranbah North Power Station generates electricity from methane-rich gas  Summary
We have set a goal of achieving the maximum economically sustainable energy and Green House Gas (GHG) savings in our business and in the use of our products. One of Anglo American’s three strategic focus areas in respect of addressing the causes of climate change and protecting our employees and asset, as well as our communities, against its potential impacts, is operational excellence.

The energy we consume accounts for 70% of our GHG emissions; our primary response to climate change is therefore to use energy more efficiently and to also minimise GHG’s directly emitted during our operational processes. What this means is improving our own performance through the introduction of clear targets and standards and then ensuring that our business units have identified and prioritised savings projects to deliver against them.  Our programme for doing this is ECO₂MAN.

Background
In South Africa, we have faced energy price rises of 25% a year from 2010 until 2012.

The Group’s business-as-usual (BAU) energy costs are expected to account for around 12% of total operating costs by 2015 compared to 8 % in 2011.

In 2010, we consumed 101 million gigajoules of energy, compared to 100million gigajoules in 2009. Our absolute energy consumption will increase as our business grows. But our energy intensity is also increasing. Energy intensity measures the amount of energy we use to mine or smelt any given tonne of mineral. As resources get scarcer we have to mine deeper, haul further and work harder to produce the same. So in terms of cutting our energy demand, we are having to run to stand still. 

We clearly need to minimise our exposure to both the risk and cost of compliance with emerging GHG policies and energy cost increases. To do so requires us to know what our exposure is and to take action on delivering energy and carbon savings targets.

Our program for planning, measuring and reporting our energy and GHG performance is called ECO₂MAN.

ECO₂MAN
ECO₂MAN is an abbreviation for an energy and CO₂ management programme.  It allows us to better understand our future energy consumption and GHG footprint and to improve our planning around energy and GHG over the life of an asset, and support identification of the least-cost energy savings measures that will enable us to meet our savings targets.

ECO₂MAN is linked to Anglo American’s Group Technical Standard on energy and GHG emissions management. It was successfully trialled in 2010 at nine operating sites and the Minas Rio project in Brazil, and has subsequently been implemented at every site across the company.

ECO₂MAN has given us, for the first time, a consistent and robust way of forecasting our energy consumption and climate change impacts and guide our performance so our targeted objectives can be achieved. Until now we have not undertaken detailed analysis and planning of our energy use and GHG emissions.

ECO₂MAN includes a self assessment tool that has provided us with the baseline information we need, at both site and business unit levels, to enable us to deliver our climate change strategy. Using this tool, sites have identified where energy is being used, where the best opportunities are to save energy and GHG emissions, and how our pattern of consumption/emission could change over the next decade.

It demands that sites consider energy and carbon in operational planning and in the budgeting process.  It also requires them to identify and implement projects for achieving energy and GHG performance targets. To support these efforts, all sites will need to have accountable energy managers/champions in place.

What has ECO₂MAN achieved?

• Every site now has in place new bottom-up targets for saving energy, GHG and water, based on a business-as-usual (“BAU”) methodology.  This new approach sets-out  the forecast energy demand and GHG emissions curve which accounts for the variable operating conditions
• Every site has identified projects for delivering these energy and GHG savings and the cost curves to achieve these savings By way of example at a study at Sishen mine identified 46 energy and GHG initiatives with a total savings potential ranging from US$8m to US$15m a year. Similarly The Minas Rio project identified alternative technology and process options which will yield a 30% savings in energy consumption.
• We believe we are an industry leader in implementing new targets based on this BAU methodology; this methodology is auditable and aligned with a new ISO standard being developed.
• The ECO₂MAN programme is aligned with the approaches being taken by some of our host country governments in formulating policy around the monitoring and reporting of GHG emissions.