Russia’s largest gold mining company Polyus has signed an agreement with hydroelectricity supplier Rushydro that will result in 90% of its energy demand being met with hydropower.
The electricity will be supplied by the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant to Polyus’ Krasnoyarsk business unit.
The agreement will cover the period until 31 December 2021, with the possibility of an extension.
Once supplies under this contract commence, 100% of the electricity consumed by Polyus’ largest producing assets, Olimpiada and Blagodatnoye, will be supplied by hydroelectricity.
Based on this estimate, Krasnoyarsk business unit said it expects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 2021 by almost half, while company-wide GHG emissions may decrease by a third compared to the previous year.
As a result, up to 90% of the electricity demand of the Company’s production facilities will now be met by renewable sources.
In 2020, Polyus and RusHydro signed a five-year bilateral agreement for the sale and purchase of electricity produced by hydroelectric power plants on the territory of a technologically isolated electric power system in the Magadan region. The volume of electricity supplied under this agreement is greater than 300 million kilowatt hours a year.
PJSC Polyus CEO Pavel Grachev said: “This deal marks the transition of Polyus’ core business unit to renewable energy sources and represents a landmark event for our company.
“Climate change is a global challenge, and it is important that as a responsible business we support the decarbonisation of the global economy.
“For this reason, we are choosing to power our production assets with energy sources that will minimize our greenhouse gas emissions.”