Tag Archives: battery-electric trucks

Sandvik to boost battery output with higher-capacity systems, standardised processes

Automation, Environmental, Mining equipment, Mining services, Power supply for mines, Sustainable mining, , , , , , , ,

Sandvik’s higher-capacity batteries – ones that could eliminate one battery swap every shift in some mining applications – will soon start to be installed across the company’s line of battery-electric vehicles, according to Brian Huff, Vice President of New Technologies for the Load and Haul Division within Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions.

Speaking to IM on the side lines of the OEM’s Innovation in Tunneling event in Tampere, Finland, Huff said the last of the previous generation of batteries were being manufactured in Camarillo, California, with the new generation battery packs lined up for future installations.

The company announced the introduction of these batteries for BEV loaders and trucks back in May, claiming they could deliver 36% more energy in the same envelope as the previous generation.

At that point, the company said they would be in production from the December quarter of 2023 and equipped as standard on all new Sandvik BEV loader and truck orders.

In addition to 36% longer runtime, customers can expect a lower cost per amp-hour compared with current-generation Artisan® battery packs. The increased capacity also improves charge acceptance, enabling faster downhill speeds and better efficiency.

Sandvik-Camarillo-BEV

Purpose-built for underground mining and designed and manufactured in-house by Sandvik, the new battery maintains the modularity and ruggedness of the existing pack and features significant design improvements.

Revamped housing and increased rigidity enhance structural strength, enabling the battery to better withstand shock and vibration. Laser-welded terminals provide a stronger connection with lower resistance, reducing energy loss and heat while improving efficiency and safety.

Top and bottom cooling plates improve cooling performance to slow cell degradation and extend life. Key design improvements also include better ingress protection against dust and moisture.

Brian Huff, Vice President of New Technology for the Load and Haul Division within Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions

The next-generation LFP battery cells are fully encapsulated in a non-conductive potting material, increasing thermal conductivity and reducing the risk of overheating and short circuit. Sandvik has also redesigned its battery management system for improved reliability and function. This safety feature monitors every cell’s temperature and voltage to ensure everything is within operational range.

Huff said the new battery modules and accompanying largely automated assembly process would enable the company to significantly scale up its offering from current capacity.

“The batteries will be assembled in a much more controlled environment than before, which will inherently lead to less human error throughout the process,” he said. “Laying this foundation will enable us to scale our battery production capacity with limited additional resources.”

Camarillo will be the first to benefit from the new assembly line, yet Huff said the in-construction plant in Malaysia will also benefit from the same disciplines to maximise productive capacity from the off.

Earlier this year, Sandvik said it was establishing a new production unit in Malaysia for manufacturing underground loaders and trucks to answer growing demand for its BEVs. Equipment production was slated to begin in the December quarter of 2023 following factory upgrades and other site improvements. It was expected to have an annual manufacturing capacity of 300 loaders and trucks and 500 battery cages by 2030.

Newcrest plans for ZERO Automotive, MacLean ML5 battery-electric trials at Cadia

Base metals, Environmental, Mine operation news, Mining equipment, Power supply for mines, Precious metals, Sustainable mining, , , , , , , , , , ,

Having committed to and benefitted from the use of battery-electric haulage at its Brucejack underground mine in Canada, Newcrest Mining is now looking into equipment electrification options at its Cadia underground mine in Australia.

In its recently published annual report, the company confirmed it was planning for electric vehicle trials at the mine in New South Wales. This follows the deployment of a fleet of Sandvik Z50 battery-electric trucks at Brucejack, along with a trial of Sandvik’s LH518B battery-electric loader.

Newcrest, which is currently the subject of a friendly takeover from Newmont Mining, continued to progress its “Net Zero by 2050” goal during its financial year to June 30, 2023, with the scoping and planning of key trials and studies to implement the Group Net Zero Emissions Roadmap continuing.

A company spokesperson confirmed to IM that its plans at Cadia – a block cave operation that is currently being expanded – could see a ZERO Automotive battery-electric light utility vehicle deployed for trials in its current financial year. This comes alongside plans to test out MacLean’s battery electric ML5 Multi-Lift, also in FY2024.

ZERO Automotive has made inroads into the Australian underground mining space, deploying vehicles at multiple OZ Minerals (now BHP) sites, in addition to bringing an ultra-safe ZED70 Ti battery-electric converted utility vehicle, using LTO battery technology, to IGO’s Nova project in Western Australia.

MacLean’s ML5, meanwhile, is the newest addition to the company’s utility vehicle product line, initially designed as a safe and purpose-built alternative to the use of integrated tool carriers in underground operations across Australia. This specific application context – mine services installation and repair work from a certified elevated work platform with a 6.5-m working height and a 4.5-t payload – was the foundation of the ML5’s engineered design for safety, productivity and versatility.

Newcrest’s plans to incorporate more electric equipment into its operating fleet have – most likely – been influenced by the impressive results the company has seen at Brucejack, with the battery-electric trucks expected to improve truck productivity, lower unit costs and abate approximately 65,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions through to 2030.

RPMGlobal bolts on new environmental features to XPAC scheduling software

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RPMGlobal has released the latest version of its scheduling software, XPAC Solutions, with some of the notable features including disturbance reporting and scheduling, landform surface definition, support for battery trucks, multiple independent calendars, bi-directional Integration with RPM’s Schedule Optimisation Tool (SOT) and many more commodity-specific enhancements.

The latest version is focused explicitly on significant features requested by and developed with XPAC Solutions users globally, the company said.

According to Richard Mathews, RPM’s Chief Executive Officer, this release of XPAC Solutions is the most significant in the past several years.

“We committed a lot of resources to this release,” he said. “Coming off the major investment we made in performance and usability in the previous release, we had a very solid platform to introduce these new industry-leading features, without comprising speed, quality or accuracy.”

One of the most significant additions to the software suite is the environmental features allowing for disturbance reporting and scheduling with enhanced spatial zoning. This is ideal for reporting areas that are disturbed by mining and dumping within key areas, such as water catchment and habitat of specific animal species and constraining those areas within the schedule, according to the company.

Along the same vein of environmental enhancements is the addition of battery-electric truck modelling. This latest release provides full support for battery trucks including the ability to define which road segments can be used to recharge batteries. Therefore, users can evaluate whether adequate recharge provision has been made throughout the schedule by providing net energy usage information.

The addition of multiple independent calendars will also appeal to many users of the solutions, the company claims. Schedule and Product Optimiser (PO) can now use different calendars, including those with variable period durations. This provides enormous flexibility and further strengthens what is already the leading optimisation offering in the market.

Bi-directional integration with SOT is also one of the major new features of this latest release. This integration uses an API eliminating the need for file transfers between the products. Users can pass reserves and dependencies directly from XPAC to SOT so they can explore different strategies to maximise the net present value or several other parameters of the schedule. Once a schedule is optimised the results are integrated back into XPAC Solutions to be visualised, analysed and published.

Another new feature allows users of the open-cut coal solutions to import final landform surfaces allowing control of dragline and shovel dumps. Schedules will reflect landform restrictions once the permitted dump height in a particular area has been reached. The resultant schedules are now optimised from a trucking hours and final landform perspective.

Other additions in specific solutions are the support for alternative mining methods within the underground metals solution, simultaneous mining and backfill of pits within the open-pit metals solution, conveyor and strip design import improvements for coal operations as well as improvements to vertical progression for oil sands.

Antofagasta becomes latest Charge on Innovation Challenge patron

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Antofagasta, as part of its sustainability efforts, has joined the Charge On Innovation Challenge as a patron.

The initiative, which counts BHP, Rio Tinto and Vale as founding patrons, seeks to develop solutions to charge the batteries of electric mining trucks safely, quickly and sustainably. This is essential in order to replace the use of diesel in these trucks and the emissions it produces, the challenge organisers say.

The goal is to enable trucks of 220 t or more to stop using diesel and run on electric batteries, just like other electric vehicles. In order to achieve this, it is essential to develop a battery charging system that does not use polluting fuels and, at the same time, allows the extraction trucks to operate as they usually do.

Today there are already efforts underway to develop and use electric trucks, but those are for trucks of a smaller tonnage (100 t) which can regenerate their own energy, Charge on Innovation says. The collaborative work with the Charge On Innovation Challenge seeks to develop solutions for larger trucks.

Iván Arriagada, CEO of Antofagasta, said: “As a mining group focused on innovation, we are interested in collaborating and contributing to the development of the industry for the future. That is why we decided to participate in this challenge, which is key to being able to use electric trucks and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

As part of its Climate Change Strategy, from 2022, the electricity supplying Antofagasta companies will come from renewable sources. Antofagasta’s Zaldívar mine has been operating from clean energy sources since July 2020.

Thanks to these advances and other measures adopted by the company, Antofagasta was able to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by more than 580,000 t since 2018. Its new goal is to decrease those emissions by an additional 30% between now and 2025.

The Charge On Innovation Challenge was launched by BHP, Vale and Rio Tinto in partnership with Austmine. It has since added Roy Hill, Teck, Boliden and Thiess as additional patrons.

Interact Analysis forecasts slow haul truck electrification uptake in open-pit mining

Environmental, Mining equipment, Mining services, Power supply for mines, Sustainable mining, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The electric revolution looks to be well and truly underway in the mining space, with underground mines of all sizes planning, trialling, or ordering various battery-electric machines to help them decarbonise their operations. Yet, the latest report on the off-highway vehicle market from Interact Analysis has indicated the transition above ground will take a little longer than many anticipated.

Homing in specifically on the 85-t-plus global hauler/dump truck market – broadly applicable to the medium-large construction space and the small-large open-pit mining sector – the market research firm laid out estimates for the annual number of new truck deliveries to 2029.

The surprising aspect of this research was the continued dominance of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle deliveries over this time frame.

The team at Interact Analysis expected the adoption rate/market share to go from 100% in 2020 – when 1,330 new vehicles were delivered – to 96.2% in 2029 – when it expected 1,716 units to be delivered.

The growth is slightly extreme in this comparison, but is partially accounted for by a drop off in deliveries in 2020 due to the effects of COVID-19. For reference, in 2019, 2,065 units were delivered.

Included within the ICE stats are biofuel vehicles, which have been gaining prominence in the mining space as miners realise they can both reduce diesel costs and emissions by incorporating biofuels into their operating mix.

Over the same time frame – 2020-2029 – the analysts see “hybrid” trucks commanding zero percent market share, with no sales.

Fully-electric trucks fare better, moving from zero deliveries in 2020 to two in 2021, five in 2022, six in 2023; to 72 in 2028 and 67 in 2029. The fully-electric adoption rate moves from 0% in 2020 to 3.8% in 2029.

Among these new fully-electric dump trucks is an XCMG EDF531 90 t battery-electric truck that was on show at the Bauma China show late last year (pictured below).

Jan Zhang, Senior Research Director at Interact Analysis, based in China, said this dump truck has already been delivered to a customer.

“In fact, quite a few dump fully-electric trucks below 100 t have already been used in China (in Guangdong),” she told IM. “Many of these have payloads of below 60 t, but a few are 90 t, and are in trial runs, and a few have also been exported to New Zealand, using the LiFePO4 battery from CATL.”

There has been much talk about hydrogen haul trucks taking hold in the mining space. This has been catalysed by Anglo American’s plans to test a 291 t fuel cell electric vehicle, a conversion to hydrogen fuel cell and lithium battery operation of a diesel-powered Komatsu 930E, at the Mogalakwena platinum mine in South Africa. If successful, these tests could lead to a rollout of 40 FCEVs across the global miner’s operations, it says.

Despite this, Interact Analysis’ research has no plus-85 t payload hydrogen trucks included in its forecasts to 2029.

Alastair Hayfield, Senior Research Director at Interact Analysis, based in the UK, explains: “Our statistics only look at new builds and not retrofits. My understanding is that the Anglo American vehicles would be retrofit (although there is limited detail at this point).

“Should some be new build, then we would update our forecast accordingly once we have better visibility.”

It’s worth asking the question: what about hydrogen trucks in mining beyond 2029?

Zhang said: “At present, mining trucks are mainly used in medium and large-scale coal and metal mines, and the use scenario is mainly for downhill heavy payload applications. That is to say where mineral resources are situated in a high up location, and it is necessary to load them from the mountain to the conveyor belt or transfer vehicle (the short distance transportation path is generally 2-3 km).”

She said mining truck electrification is mainly driven by two factors, with the first being operational cost advantages.

Jan Zhang, Senior Research Director at Interact Analysis, based in China

“For example, a mine truck with a total weight of 90 t will cost $45,000-75,000 in standard fuel annually, whilst the cost of electricity is only a third of the cost of fuel under the same circumstances, which means that $30,000-45,000 can be saved in the annual cost, not to mention other costs which are also higher for ICE mine trucks such as repair and maintenance,” she said.

The second factor is environmental protection and policy promotion.

“In China, the ‘National Green Mine Construction Specification’, issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources, has been implemented since October 2018,” Zhang explained. “This measure will surely help to grow the market share of hydrogen trucks in China, although the overall percentage will remain small.”

The last category included in Interact Analysis’ research was “Others” in the global hauler/dump truck market for 85-t-plus vehicles.

No deliveries for this category were registered in 2020, but the company anticipates one delivery in 2021, followed by three in 2022 and five in 2023. This gets as high as eight deliveries in 2025, but, by the end of the forecast period (2029), this category still commands 0.0% of the total.

So, what trucks fit into this category?

Hayfield explained: “We’re talking about diesel-electrics that will enter service into a trolley line operation – we essentially have to make an estimate on how we think the vehicle will predominantly be used. This is analogous to what we do in our on-highway research where we have to make estimates on how class 8 trucks are used for different applications ie long haul, distribution, vocational applications.”

This is not to say there will be no trolley assist trucks coming into the mining space, but, as far as Interact Analysis is concerned, these will not be new trucks coming out of the factory destined to head onto trolley lines. They will more likely be AC drive trucks that are retrofitted later for trolley assist operation.

When consolidated, these numbers show an underlying trend.

Back in 2019, there were 2,065 truck units delivered to the market in this 85-t-plus category, but, even out to 2029, this level is not reached, according to Interact Analysis.

Alastair Hayfield, Senior Research Director at Interact Analysis, based in the UK

In 2020, total deliveries dropped to 1,330 and, in 2021, Interact Analysis sees this rising to 1,545 units. A continual rise is expected in the years following, but it only reaches 1,783 in 2029.

What about beyond this timeframe?

Hayfield answered: “You have two fundamental pressures: a growing, resource-intensive population and a need to re-use/cut consumption because of environmental and/or legislative pressure. I suspect we will continue to see the growth of new mines throughout the 2030s in developing regions, fuelling demand for new trucks. However, I suspect we will see increasing pressure in Europe and North America on sustainability and the need to re-use materials and, hence, a slowing in the opening of new mines.”

This means demand for new trucks could start to drop during the 2030s in Europe and North America, he deduced.

This is not an exhaustive look at trends in the open-pit mining dump truck market – it is more of a taster – but Interact Analysis plans a detailed, mining specific study later in 2021. Such analysis could include forecasts for the retrofit market, providing the complete picture mining industry onlookers are after.