Sishen ore mine in the Northern Cape to get 62MW embedded solar power

[Luis]

First-of-its-kind solar power plant in South Africa allowing R44.5-billion Kalahari mine to say goodbye to Eskom

Anglo American's Kumba Iron Ore entered into a deal that will see its 14km open-pit Sishen iron ore mine in Kathu, in the Kalahari Desert, receive 62MW of solar power from an embedded on-site solar field.

Sishen is one of the five largest open-pit mines in the world and represents one of South Africa's deepest iron ore reserves. In 2025, the mine generated R44.5 billion in revenue.

 

[wingnut771]

First of its kind? Sounds pretty standard to me.

 

[xera]

That guy is so lucky operating this machine... some people dream of this, and then go and buy and build it in LEGO.

 

[denmendez65]

First of its kind? Sounds pretty standard to me.

Its just marketing BS. At the last company I worked at I was involved with 2 mines that had 60MW installed and running. One has a BESS and the other was getting its BESS installed. First of a kind my arse.

 

[denmendez65]

 

[wingnut771]

Its just marketing BS. At the last company I worked at I was involved with 2 mines that had 60MW installed and running. One has a BESS and the other was getting its BESS installed. First of a kind my arse.

Its all about those good stories.

 

[Justanotherguybythesea]

Yes mines are perfect for solar, lots of ground that is otherwise unused, and generally placed where there is a lot of sun, plus a decent power use that makes generating your own look worthwhile, and also well capable of getting it, and expanding every few months as they get cash together, as they do have the skill set to do most of the civils work in house at essentially zero cost.

 

[Rickster]

Eskom:

 

[Flanders]

Also Eskom:

We just increased our capacity by 62MW!

/pats self on back

 

[hj007]

mining is not a sexy business. look at how red everything is. at the coal washing plant it looked like Mordor. props to those that can stand working in mining houses on-site, but man is it depressing.

 

[TrueSeeker]

Win-win everything considered. Should also theoretically lower prices for regular consumers. Traditionally the power supplied to heavy industrial users tend to be heavily cross-subsidised via inflated bills pounding normal consumer wallets.

And yeah - That such heavy industrial users can help themselves for cheaper these days is just another paragraph in the writing on the wall.