I'm seeing a lot of borderline disingenuous claims that AVZ's power requirements are sorted because there is a hydroelectric power station nearby. Here are the facts regarding that statement, feel free to dispute them as I am not an electrical engineer and the information out there is pretty limited.
The power plant in question, Mpiana Mwanga hydroelectric power station and it's related infrastructure i.e. transmission line has been destroyed by Rwandan forces.
AVZ has stated "there are plans for the reconstruction of the hydroelectric power station"
OK, so there is currently no power plant.
Dathomir has agreed to rehabilitate power plant and the road from Lubumbashi to Manono but in what time frame can we expect the power plant to come back online?
The plant is located 90km away from Manono so running new transmission lines will be no small feat.
AVZ has stated that the plant has a name plate power output capacity of 15 - 30MW. Looking at comparable hydroelectric plants, its annual energy output may be somewhere between 70,000 - 140,000MWh.
How much reliable energy can we assume will be available to AVZ once the townships in the area hook onto the power plant?
This is a drop in the ocean compared to the amount of energy required to run a large spodumene concentrator and lithium carbonate plant to match this potential resource.
According to my research, rough energy requirements are as follows:
Electrical energy to supply a 1Mtpa spodumene mine & concentrator: 25,000MWh
Electrical energy required to produce 20ktpa of LCE: 50,000MWh
Thermal energy required to produce 20ktpa of LCE: 500,000MWh (this may be way off)
Therefore, the hydroelectric plant could probably provide the electrical energy for a 1Mtpa/20ktpa project, but what is the use in having a huge resource that justifies a 10Mtpa/200ktpa project if it can't be powered?
How is the thermal energy going to be provided? The hydroelectric plant obviously could never do it and it would not be efficient even if it did. I've never seen this point addressed?
Fossil fuel i.e. coal or gas will need to be transported in along the >2000km road and rail journey to directly fuel the thermal processes i.e. kilns and boilers.
In my opinion, AVZ or a potential buyer will need to construct a gas-fired power plant to generate the massive electricity requirements reliably and cheaply onsite. The gas delivered can also be used to directly power the kilns that are used for the roasting and baking processes in conventional LCE production.
BGS has the same issue, but has slightly better circumstances, i.e. existing sealed highway and rail directly to port, only 1000km distance, and a power transmission line from the nearby operational hydroelectric power plant that is only 10km away and can provide 44MW of power and 200,000MWh of energy.
I hold both companies as they will both have fantastic resources once they are completely drilled, AVZ with respect to size + co products and BGS with respect to quality/grade. However in order to exploit these resources >2Mtpa/40ktpa, serious power generation is required so onsite generation and fossil fuel powered thermal processes will be required in both cases - not unfeasible, just a serious point of discussion that I haven't seen mentioned in any detail.
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