Richards Bay Smelter Electricity Usage Stats

by Mr John Christie
(australia)

I seriously doubt the veracity of the stated consumption of electricity by the refineries.

The Richards Bay smelter cluster has an estimated electricity demand of around 1.5 megawatts (Mw) (giga). This is the same demand as a large city. It is around 4% of our national generation capacity. The Alcoa plant will probably draw around 1Mw.(giga) The Mozal plant uses around 1Mw. (giga)


A giga watt is one thousand mega watts,A megawatt (MW) is one thousand kW. A kilowatt is one thousand watts.

According to your article a large city uses 1.5 MW or 1.5 million watts, the same as the Richards Bay smelter.
If the city had a population of 1.5 million people this would average a consumption per head of 1 watt!

Am I right in thinking you are meaning the Richards bay smelter is consuming 1.5 GW that would be more in keeping with other aluminium smelters.



Regards

John.