Implats May Power Platinum Refinery with Platinum Fuel Cells

Mining Weekly reported that Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd. (JSE:IMP) is looking into the possibility of taking its platinum refinery off the national electricity grid and instead powering it with platinum fuel cells.

As quoted in the market news:

The refinery already has a supply of available hydrogen to fuel the cells and would need some 20 MW of fuel-cell power if it were to do without the Eskom grid.

In the interim, plans for an initial 2 MW fuel cell, which would be the biggest such unit in the southern hemisphere, are at an advanced stage.

Implats CEO Terence Goodlace stated:

We’re going ahead with the project to put in the 2 MW unit at the refinery. The benefit of that for us right now is that we can do away with all of our generators, peaks and reduce our reliance on Eskom in that way.

We’ve got a ready supply of hydrogen, which we use in the refinery and we’re looking at taking the whole of our refinery off grid power through putting in fuel cells.

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