February 3, 2020 – ALROSA's Mirny Road Maintenance Division extends the use of solar power by installing hybrid stand-alone stations at its remote posts. This will help to decrease costs and environmental impact while also improving the power supply of the facilities.
The company replaces conventional diesel power stations to reduce financial and environmental costs. Two hybrid power stations costing 3.7 million rubles each were shipped to Mirny in January.

ALROSA’s main operations are concentrated in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in Far Eastern Russia. Winters are long and summers are short there. However, this region is relatively sunny. For cities of Yakutia, the average annual amount of sunshine lies in the range of 1,700-2,000 hours.

Each solar hybrid station includes a photovoltaic system, batteries to store the excess energy and a backup diesel generator. It provides enough power to make illumination, communication equipment and appliances work. The company plans to install plants in February at the maintenance workers' camps at remote road posts Uzhman and Nepa instead of conventional diesel gensets.

ALROSA's road maintenance division already has one hybrid photovoltaic station, which was installed in 2019.

The diamond mining company also uses solar energy collectors at the heating system of the base camp of Nyurba MPD. According to ALROSA's ecologists' estimate, the complex has already allowed to reduce oil consumption by 85 tonnes and greenhouse gas emissions by 271 tonnes of ÑÎ2-equivalent.