Energy

Consumption reduction and ongoing improvement

The wood chip (splinter or chip produced by wood trimming) is a renewable energy source, which has been contributing not only to reduce the emissions of greenhouse effect gases (GEE), but also to decrease energy consumption at the Anglo American units. However, in 2009 due to high humidity of wood chips generated by the rains at the Copebrás unit in Catalão, the goal for reduction of power consumption was not achieved, as the humidity resulted in an increase in power consumption to burn the same quantity of wood chip.

Initiatives for energy savings have derived from ideas presented by means of the Continuous Improvement (CI) system, such as the replacement of low-performance electrical engines with high-performance engines. Such replacement is projected to be completed in 2012.