Power supply
Gresshoff refers back to the ABB Ability eMine range – specifically the company’s FastCharger. ABB put in a submission for the EMC long haul challenge, which will use the eMine FastCharger at 600KW on long-haul trucks – four-carriage-long vehicles, used to drive 100–300km across the Australian outback – removing their reliance on diesel. To power the system, it will be coupled with a solar and battery storage solution, completing the decarbonisation story. From there, the next question is how to bring the technology from 600KW into the megawatt range and beyond for speed-of- charging operations.
Both Gresshoff and Graeme Stanway, co-founder and director of the EMC, see the increasing efficiency of batteries as a key part of the future of electrification in the mining industry. Developments across electrification could play a key role here, the former says, noting that, with electric automobiles, a large part of the vehicle’s weight comes from the battery. “What happens when battery technology evolves and energy density doubles in the next five years –or new minerals are used to increase energy density – so that electric car batteries can be half their size and travel the same distance? Or extend their range for countries with greater travel distances?” Gresshoff asks. “What effect will this have on a haul truck?” For one, it could lead to battery electric equipment that can effectively operate on declines that current BEVs are limited with, while also managing larger loads. Another major issue is the charging rate for larger systems, which have limitations of their own. Current haul trucks can run on 2600VDC, and supplying a trolley line and charge a battery system becomes a challenge due to electrical current requirements – typically a 4C or 6C charge rate. Gresshoff highlights ABB’s selection as one of the winners of Austmine’s Charge On Innovation Challenge, which seeks to accelerate commercialisation of effective solutions for charging large battery electric haul trucks for the mining industry.
The shift towards digitalisation Stanway sees electrification as a subset technology of the broader decarbonisation efforts – operating in tandem with the increase of data and the interconnected systems required to allow renewable energy to flow into a mining operation. Within the next decade, he expects to see automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to get rapidly melded alongside those technologies to create next-generation electric mines. “There are really mutually reinforcing benefits between electrification, automation and AI,” Stanway notes. “You can see these things that were quite disparate getting very close, and then creating a tipping point for these next-generation electric mines.”
World Mining Frontiers /
www.nsenergybusiness.com
Greater electrification in mining operations results in a greater amount of scheduling for moving parts – the charging of electric equipment, for example – which is where automation can play a key role. At the same time, this generates a lot more data, creating the need for new software to run whole sites for energy optimisation.
“Electrification is a decarbonisation journey. And that decarbonisation needs to be joined with the digitalisation journey,” Gresshoff adds. “People call it Industry 4.0, I prefer to call it Mining 4.0.” It’s one thing to electrify a mine, it’s another to work out how you’re going to control these new systems, and for that, mining operators need to turn to automation and digitalisation. “For me, it’s the foundation stone, because it’s no good having 50 vehicles all rock up to go get charged at the same time,” says Greshoff. “It’s not like diesel where you can just fill it up and go – charging puts pressure on your electrical infrastructure, from the transformers, the switch gear, and cables, to the incomers – but also requires mine-wide automation and control systems for power management.” Dealing with this new pressure on a mine’s power systems and micro grid, or when solar or wind power drops when the weather is less than cooperative, requires new solutions. Whether that involves a system that can automatically turn to alternative fuel sources when renewable powers drop, or one that can manage battery-powered assets, some level of automation and digitalisation will need to take place. For Gresshoff, while emergent technologies will no doubt play a key role in the future of electrification in the mining industry, he thinks that a number of current technologies still have a key part to play too. “Look at the ABB Ability eMine suite for electrification,” he says. “I think a classic example there is the Trolley Assist. It’s not a new technology – it’s been around – but it’s about the adoption of that technology.” With the price of diesel and other fossil fuels steadily rising, the industry is reevaluating how it makes use of some of these traditional systems coupled with newer battery technology. ABB’s Ability eMine Trolley system aims to reduce a vehicle’s fuel consumption by up to 90%. “It’s a different world than the 1990s,” Gresshoff adds. “We need to think differently and coupling old with new allows for a true decarbonisation roadmap.”
A big way in which the industry could rethink is in how it transports materials. A large percentage of diesel emissions in mine’s operation comes from haul trucks – more so for open cut mines than for underground ones, but a large amount either way. Gresshoff suggests rethinking how mine’s move material – for example, by replacing trucks with conveyors or hoists. “There are plenty of mines in this world that are using trucks, and the trucks are
Opposite: The focus often falls on haul trucks when mining companies consider their emissions.
4–7%
The percentage of global CO2
emissions
that come from the mining industry. McKinsey
50%
The percentage of the mining industry’s CO2
emissions that
are from haul trucks. Rocky Mountain Institute
33
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