IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v16y2023i19p6879-d1250581.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Application of Clustering Techniques for Improved Energy Benchmarking on Deep-Level Mines

Author

Listed:
  • Claudio Caromba

    (Department of Industrial Engineering, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch 7602, South Africa)

  • Corné Schutte

    (Department of Industrial Engineering, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch 7602, South Africa)

  • Jean van Laar

    (Department of Industrial Engineering, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch 7602, South Africa)

Abstract

The South African mining industry relies on coal-based energy to run operations, with the sector utilising 29.6 terawatt-hours of energy in 2018. However, energy availability constraints and swelling electricity prices in the country have instilled a greater emphasis on energy management practices to reduce waste and maintain profitability. Energy benchmarking is a popular and effective energy management method applied in industry, but the current methods in the mining sector use the average energy usage of various mining shafts over different intervals to develop benchmarks. This may lead to skewed benchmarks when anomalous energy usage is present within the interval or when vastly different energy users are aggregated. However, clustering-based benchmarking techniques have been applied successfully in other industries to compare similar energy users accurately. This study developed and applied a clustering-based benchmarking method to evaluate the performance of different mining shafts at a deep-level gold mine in South Africa. The K-means unsupervised learning clustering algorithm was used to group similar energy users and benchmark different mining shafts using ordinary least squares regression equations. Compared to traditional methods, the benefit of clustered energy usage benchmarks is shown by more accurately evaluating energy performance and facilitating focused energy management responses.

Suggested Citation

  • Claudio Caromba & Corné Schutte & Jean van Laar, 2023. "Application of Clustering Techniques for Improved Energy Benchmarking on Deep-Level Mines," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-18, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:19:p:6879-:d:1250581
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/19/6879/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/19/6879/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maregedze, Laurence & Chingosho, Hilton & Madiye, Luxmore, 2022. "Use and cost optimization for underground mines electrical energy: A case of a mine in Zvishavane," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
    2. Wang, Ning & Wen, Zongguo & Liu, Mingqi & Guo, Jie, 2016. "Constructing an energy efficiency benchmarking system for coal production," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 301-308.
    3. Djuric, Natasa & Novakovic, Vojislav, 2009. "Review of possibilities and necessities for building lifetime commissioning," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 486-492, February.
    4. Luo, Xuan & Hong, Tianzhen & Chen, Yixing & Piette, Mary Ann, 2017. "Electric load shape benchmarking for small- and medium-sized commercial buildings," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 715-725.
    5. Li, Zhengwei & Han, Yanmin & Xu, Peng, 2014. "Methods for benchmarking building energy consumption against its past or intended performance: An overview," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 325-334.
    6. Park, June Young & Yang, Xiya & Miller, Clayton & Arjunan, Pandarasamy & Nagy, Zoltan, 2019. "Apples or oranges? Identification of fundamental load shape profiles for benchmarking buildings using a large and diverse dataset," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 236(C), pages 1280-1295.
    7. Zhan, Sicheng & Liu, Zhaoru & Chong, Adrian & Yan, Da, 2020. "Building categorization revisited: A clustering-based approach to using smart meter data for building energy benchmarking," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Piscitelli, Marco Savino & Giudice, Rocco & Capozzoli, Alfonso, 2024. "A holistic time series-based energy benchmarking framework for applications in large stocks of buildings," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 357(C).
    2. Andrews, Abigail & Jain, Rishee K., 2022. "Beyond Energy Efficiency: A clustering approach to embed demand flexibility into building energy benchmarking," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 327(C).
    3. Roth, Jonathan & Martin, Amory & Miller, Clayton & Jain, Rishee K., 2020. "SynCity: Using open data to create a synthetic city of hourly building energy estimates by integrating data-driven and physics-based methods," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 280(C).
    4. Juaidi, Adel & AlFaris, Fadi & Montoya, Francisco G. & Manzano-Agugliaro, Francisco, 2016. "Energy benchmarking for shopping centers in Gulf Coast region," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 247-255.
    5. Zhan, Sicheng & Liu, Zhaoru & Chong, Adrian & Yan, Da, 2020. "Building categorization revisited: A clustering-based approach to using smart meter data for building energy benchmarking," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    6. Benedetti, Miriam & Bonfa', Francesca & Bertini, Ilaria & Introna, Vito & Ubertini, Stefano, 2018. "Explorative study on Compressed Air Systems’ energy efficiency in production and use: First steps towards the creation of a benchmarking system for large and energy-intensive industrial firms," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 227(C), pages 436-448.
    7. Liu, Jiangyan & Chen, Huanxin & Liu, Jiahui & Li, Zhengfei & Huang, Ronggeng & Xing, Lu & Wang, Jiangyu & Li, Guannan, 2017. "An energy performance evaluation methodology for individual office building with dynamic energy benchmarks using limited information," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 193-205.
    8. Attia, Shady & Shadmanfar, Niloufar & Ricci, Federico, 2020. "Developing two benchmark models for nearly zero energy schools," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 263(C).
    9. Cai, Wei & Liu, Fei & Zhou, XiaoNa & Xie, Jun, 2016. "Fine energy consumption allowance of workpieces in the mechanical manufacturing industry," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 623-633.
    10. Salah Vaisi & Saleh Mohammadi & Benedetto Nastasi & Kavan Javanroodi, 2020. "A New Generation of Thermal Energy Benchmarks for University Buildings," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-18, December.
    11. Liu, Jiangyan & Wang, Jiangyu & Li, Guannan & Chen, Huanxin & Shen, Limei & Xing, Lu, 2017. "Evaluation of the energy performance of variable refrigerant flow systems using dynamic energy benchmarks based on data mining techniques," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 522-539.
    12. Geraldi, Matheus Soares & Ghisi, Enedir, 2022. "Data-driven framework towards realistic bottom-up energy benchmarking using an Artificial Neural Network," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 306(PA).
    13. Zhiang Zhang & Ali Cheshmehzangi & Saeid Pourroostaei Ardakani, 2021. "A Data-Driven Clustering Analysis for the Impact of COVID-19 on the Electricity Consumption Pattern of Zhejiang Province, China," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-22, December.
    14. Nutkiewicz, Alex & Yang, Zheng & Jain, Rishee K., 2018. "Data-driven Urban Energy Simulation (DUE-S): A framework for integrating engineering simulation and machine learning methods in a multi-scale urban energy modeling workflow," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 225(C), pages 1176-1189.
    15. Capozzoli, Alfonso & Piscitelli, Marco Savino & Brandi, Silvio & Grassi, Daniele & Chicco, Gianfranco, 2018. "Automated load pattern learning and anomaly detection for enhancing energy management in smart buildings," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 336-352.
    16. Zhou, Yuren & Lork, Clement & Li, Wen-Tai & Yuen, Chau & Keow, Yeong Ming, 2019. "Benchmarking air-conditioning energy performance of residential rooms based on regression and clustering techniques," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 253(C), pages 1-1.
    17. Amasyali, Kadir & El-Gohary, Nora M., 2018. "A review of data-driven building energy consumption prediction studies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 1192-1205.
    18. Molina-Solana, Miguel & Ros, María & Ruiz, M. Dolores & Gómez-Romero, Juan & Martin-Bautista, M.J., 2017. "Data science for building energy management: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 598-609.
    19. Gianluca Serale & Massimo Fiorentini & Alfonso Capozzoli & Daniele Bernardini & Alberto Bemporad, 2018. "Model Predictive Control (MPC) for Enhancing Building and HVAC System Energy Efficiency: Problem Formulation, Applications and Opportunities," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-35, March.
    20. Robinson, Caleb & Dilkina, Bistra & Hubbs, Jeffrey & Zhang, Wenwen & Guhathakurta, Subhrajit & Brown, Marilyn A. & Pendyala, Ram M., 2017. "Machine learning approaches for estimating commercial building energy consumption," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 889-904.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:19:p:6879-:d:1250581. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.