Metals are more and more coveted and strategic resources; they will be necessary for the energy transition. However, to extract them, mining companies need a lot of energy. This is the case of Raglan Mine, a nickel mine in northern Quebec, isolated from the electrical grid, which consumes more than 55 million liters of diesel each year. The objective of this brief is to study the possibility of substituting diesel with a renewable energy source. The wind potential in Raglan is considerable and two wind turbines have already been successfully installed. However, in order to install large quantities of wind turbines, it is necessary to install a storage system to continue to meet the energy demand. In this study, hydrogen storage is studied. The technologies of electrolyzer PEM, compressed tank and PEM and solid fuel cells have been selected in this study. Using simulations performed on HOMER software, the results showed that it was technically feasible to meet the mine's demand from a renewable system of wind turbines and hydrogen technologies. The results showed that solid fuel cells, despite their slow response time, were more efficient because in addition to better electrical performance, heat can also be recovered. However, the costs remain high and the economic prospects of such a project also depend largely on the future costs of diesel as well as the evolution of the costs of hydrogen technologies which are in full expansion. In order to further reduce costs, several avenues are also possible, such as the revalorization of oxygen, the storage of hydrogen in permafrost, or the study of the mine's potential for erasure.
Azin, H. (Author),
Rousse (Supervisor) &
Ouellet-Plamondon (Co-supervisor),
26 Oct 2022Student thesis: Master's thesis › Master in Engineering: Engineering