The combined cost effect of carbon tax, ECS and MYPD3 tariffs on the gold mining industry of South Africa

South African industries are facing worrying cost implications related to their electricity usage. These include carbon tax, increased reactive power charges, unavoidable tariff increases and the Energy Conservation Scheme (ECS). Some of these proposed schemes and increases are not enforced yet, but pose a threat to the financial well-being of large key customers such as the gold mining industry. The aim of this study is to accurately predict the impact of these costs risks and identify strategies that could alleviate the cost implications on the gold mining industry. Mitigation strategies are developed for each quantifiable electricity price risk. Electricity consumption and installed capacity benchmarking was used to categorize the selected mines according to the investigated risks. The benchmarked results provide a starting point to identify best practices and develop electricity cost saving strategies.