LIMITATIONS OF SMALL TRIALS “The cost of battery light vehicles for underground is significant: two to three times the price of a regular diesel vehicle. And the other thing is we haven’t yet seen the industry be that overly successful with them: after sort of six months, they tend to get a few issues, so that’s really holding us back going down that path,” explains Manager, Mining Operations Andrew Flynn. The sector runs trials to understand issues and identify improvements that need to be made, but Perenti’s Kwok points out that these could well be related to the scale of the experiments. “By partnering with our clients and OEMS we have been at the forefront of trialling electric equipment over the last several years, and the learnings are varied from the tactical all the way to the strategic. For example, placing a single electric truck into a large mine site where other diesel trucks currently operate is challenging, because you’re being confined by the operating envelope of both machines: there’s a diesel truck in front of you which may not be able to get up to speed as quickly as your electric truck, which means you don’t see the benefit of your electric truck,” he explains. According to him, isolated trials have “absolute benefits” in gathering data to help adjust performance metrics for electric mining equipment and understand their impact on ventilation requirements to refine the business case—but mixing in electric equipment within existing diesel fleets “also has challenges.” CHANGE OF EQUIPMENT, CHANGE OF MINDSET While the economic benefits of decarbonising mine fleets are still being ironed out—and will forever depend on the type of mine, depth, and ore grade— existing trials have made one thing clear: switching to electric equipment requires much more than a purchase order. “The adjustments are extraordinary,” says Brian Boitano, Executive General Manager of Sales, Marketing, Training and Solutions for Liebherr- Australia, which is delivering a full fleet of electric vehicles and equipment to Fortescue mine sites across the Pilbara.
“A major change that will be taking place around the use of mining fleets is that today, they’re operated through a lens of utilization and production, with energy as a kind of an afterthought. In the future, we’re going to have to manage battery and cable- operated pieces of equipment through an energy lens, allocating equipment across the mine site based on their battery charge, which is something we’ve never done in the past,” he adds. To manage the change, Liebherr is working with Fortescue to upskill a largely mechanical workforce on working with energy management systems in a new type of training partnership that wasn’t previously commonplace between OEMs and miners. DEEPENING MINER-OEM COOPERATION The industry’s move towards zero-emissions vehicles is changing the dynamics between equipment manufacturers and their mining clients. For example, Komatsu has established a dedicated working group— the GHG Alliance— with some of its biggest customers to gather regular feedback on electric equipment developments. “This is a new approach for the industry,” Mascarenhas explains. “Traditionally, an OEM would develop a product based on customer feedback and bring it to market. Now, because these solutions are so deeply integrated into mine sites, we need continuous input throughout the process.” He adds that safety and maintenance remain key priorities for customers. Torex Gold is about to ramp up operations at its brand-new Media Luna mine in Mexico, with a fleet of 67 battery-electric vehicles, 13 electrical plug-in drills and eight diesel units. Vice President of Mines Technical Services Gertjan Bekkers tells Energy and Mines that going electric is easier at a greenfield underground site, where the higher capital expenditure for electric units can be offset by lower ventilation capital requirements. But even with a stronger business case, operating a large electric fleet is still new in the mining industry and requires training and trialing. For that reason, Bekkers says Torex is working closely with its electric OEMs, including MacLean, Rokion, and Sandvik.
Liebherr R 9400 E at Fortescue Solomon Mine
“We’re really on a joint learning curve with the OEMs: that’s why we very deliberately selected only three suppliers for the fleet, rather than diluting it with a lot of different vendors, so that there is also skin in the game for them,” says Bekkers. BETTING ON THE FUTURE We may still be some ways away from large-scale implementation: IDTech research predicts that it will take another 20 years for half of mining vehicle sales to be electric. But some miners are already fully committed, though betting on incremental changes. For example, Liebherr’s partnership with Fortescue will see it deliver 105 diesel-powered electric drive trucks by the end of this year, followed by fully battery-electric trucks from 2026. These 105 diesel trucks have been designed to be repowered with batteries once the internal combustion engine reaches the end of its first life, around 25,000 hours.
The first trucks are expected to reach this milestone by 2027, and by 2030, the entire fleet will have been repowered – interestingly, through a partnership with a wholly owned Fortescue entity. “Fortescue Zero is a battery design engineering and manufacturing company, so they partnered with us to design a battery product that we will be inserting into the cavity of the truck where the engine sits today,” explains Boitano. And while most OEMs are trying to simplify the implementation of decarbonised fleets by making their trucks autonomous, some miners actually believe humans are crucial in the transition. “Electrification certainly is an enabler for automation, but I also think there’s a place for staffed machines to still perform the work. It’s about understanding your mine, creating a really good plan, and then responding to change. We need people to resolve these [electrification] challenges,” says Kwok at Perenti.
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