- Tharisa, an integrated resource group engaged in the mining and production of platinum group metals and chrome concentrates plans to build a 300MW solar farm at their new Karo operated platinum mine in Zimbabwe.
- The project forms part of a US$391 million investment to set up the 194 000 ounces per year platinum group metal open pit mine.
- The site is located about 100 kilometres south-west of the capital Harare.
“We are fully licenced and permitted and we believe this is a low-risk approach to any mining opportunity…being large-scale, open pit, low cost and adopting a multi-phase development approach,” said Tharisa chief executive Phoevos Pouroulis at a press briefing yesterday.
Pouroulis said the mine construction is expected to be completed by July 2024.
Related news: JinkoSolar launches Tiger Neo in Zimbabwe
Karo Mining Holdings which is 70% owned by Tharisa and operates an existing platinum mine in Zim will run the operation. Karo managing director Bernard Pryor said the company was in talks with renewable energy firm Total Eren for the development of a 300MW solar PV plant to supply the mine with power. He did not say whether the system would take a hybrid form but it is highly likely as mining and big industrial operators in Zimbabwe have increasingly found that they cannot rely on the government to supply electricity.
Related news: Tharisa mine to construct a 40MW solar plant in South Africa
Zimbabwe’s energy generation and infrastructure are in a very poor state due to decades of mismanagement, poor maintenance and corruption. More recently outages in Zimbabwe have intensified because the government does not have enough foreign currency to pay for power imports from neighbouring countries. Read more
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
