The world’s first true electric surface mining truck, the eDumper, developed by Kuhn Schweiz AG, made its way to Ciments Vigier’s La Tscharner limestone quarry in Switzerland in January 2018. The machine has performed very well and will be officially handed over to the quarrying company at a ceremony on April 20. While it has cost Ciments Vigier SA over $1 million to retrofit the truck, they plan to ultimately convert up to eight vehicles at the site due to the fuel savings and emissions reductions.
The fully laden Komatsu e-Dumper from Kuhn Schweiz has a total weight of 111 t and can transport 60 t of lime and marl from the high-elevation extraction area to the permanently installed transport system. Energy recovered on the downhill (laden) run is stored in lithium batteries, provided by Lithium Storage GmbH, and is used to power the uphill (unladen) run, and the surplus is fed into the electricity grid.
The eDumper uses a Komatsu HD605-7 dumper as the base machine but the consortium partners have replaced the diesel engine with an electric motor capable of 590 kW of continuous power and up to 9,500 Nm torque. This allows the truck to handle gradients of up to 13%. The lithium battery pack has a capacity of 700 kWh, and is capable of 3,000A of current. It also weighing 4.5 t and is by far the largest battery ever installed in a vehicle.
