Efficient monitoring of mine compressed air savings

In 2011 Eskom experienced a peak in electricity demand reaching 89% of the utility's generation capacity. The continued high utilisation rate reduced opportunities to perform essential maintenance on the system. In an effort to alleviate the pressure on the grid Eskom instated several initiatives. One of these initiatives is Demand Side Management (DSM). Electricity load is successfully reduced by DSM projects, but many DSM savings are not sustained throughout the project lifetime. This paper focusses on the development and implementation of a new method to monitor DSM savings. It includes the reliable collection of data from on-site instrumentation, processing and storing of the data in a central database and generating savings reports. This is done automatically on a daily basis. The mining sector consumes 14.5% of the total electricity generated by Eskom. Mine compressed air systems can consume as much as 40% of a mine's total electricity requirements. This makes mine compressed air systems an ideal study for the new monitoring system. A number of project implementations are used as case studies to measure and interpret the effectiveness and value of this system. It saves a significant amount of man-hours and proves to be of great value in improving the sustainability of DSM projects.