Mining giant BHP has followed in the path of fellow iron ore major Fortescue by deploying its first electric excavator, dumping a diesel engine and replacing it with an electric motor fed by a trailing cable.
The R 9400 excavator is made by Liebherr and is operating at the Yandi mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, and will be key to helping the iron ore miners reduce emissions from the billions of litres of diesel that are burned each year in the mining province.
Fortescue started trialling an electric excavator in December last year, and after finding that it lowered costs and boosted productivity, and cut emissions, it plans to replace all its diesel excavators, saving a total of 95 million tonnes a year.
Fortescue, however, is in a hurry. It has a target of “real zero” emissions by 2030, which means no burning of fossil fuels, while BHP’s target is for a 30 per cent reduction by 2030. BHP’s longer term target is “net zero” by 2050.
“Electrification of our fleet is our preferred solution to displace greenhouse gas emissions from using diesel – from trucks to trains to excavators – we’re working hard to electrify our equipment,” said Tim Day, the head of iron ore in Western Australia for BHP.
One of its operators at the mine says the new electric excavator is “just like a normal digger, but quicker.”
However, to make the switch to electric excavators, and electric haul trucks that BHP and fellow miners Rio Tinto are also trialling, the companies will need to build renewable energy capacity to keep emissions low.
BHP says it cannot buy renewable electricity is not purchased through the market as the mining operations are not connected to an existing grid, “so we are working through the best way to introduce the large volumes of renewable or other low to zero emissions power that we will need,” it says.
It has previously announced plans to build up to 550 MW of new wind, solar and storage capacity, with around 200MW each of wind and solar to replace gas in its Pilbara operations and add another 150MW of battery storage. (The storage duration was not specified).
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of The Driven, and also edits and founded the Renew Economy and One Step Off The Grid web sites. He has been a journalist for nearly 40 years, is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review, and owns a Tesla Model 3.
When you consider that electric-powered mining equipment is actually superior in every way to diesel powered, it makes you wonder why the switch-over is only starting now!
Except in this instance, the trailing cable but I suspect these diggers mostly work in quite regimented ways. Another factor would be that electricity at these sites is often diesel generated.
It’s CCGT powered. Not diesel.
A generator using fossil fuel then powering an electric tool uses less fuel and create fewer emissions than Buring that fuel in an equivalent machine doing the same work.
Wow!
Steam technology (how old is that?, 200 years?)
Fossil fuels and water.
PV capability was discovered 100 years ago.
Proof, if any was needed, of the resistance by industry to change, adapt. Except in replacing humans with machines/robots.
I worked on an open pit copper mine development in Peru 10 years ago. All the pit shovels were electric like this. The site was connected to the grid, which had a lot of Hydro power in it.
The trailing cable isn’t an issue. The shovels set up next to a blasted face in the pit. A loadout circuit for the haul trucks is established with the cables sitting behind windrows. The cables are armoured. They are as thick as your arm. I’d suggest a haul truck could run over one and it would be OK. If the cable needs to cross a road, they use “power poles” with big heavy concrete blocks at the base to lift the cable above the tops of the haul trucks.
The shovel doesn’t move much in a day, only a matter of a few metres.
The cabin of these excavators is amazing – it’s like a clean control room on tracks. 3 or 4 people can be in it at a time. There’s noise, but it’s more of an electrical noise. No vibration, no diesel mixed with dust. Because the site was at 4000m altitude and the air is thin, they could get a lot more machine power out of a fully electric system.
Back in the early days of the Bowen Basin, there were large drag lines to remove the overburden. The drag lines were electric and represent most of the system load (the grid was not interconnected in those days) when they were operating; so when the operator cast the bucket out, the system frequency changed and it was audible. There were 11KV transformer to power the drag lines; it is said that a drag line was changing position once, when it stood on the 11KV transformer supplying it with power. The story doesn’t report what happened next.
Consumes heaps of electricity, diesel has much lower infrastructure need for operating so you dont need to have any additional issues with diesel, as we proceed with progress in chargers and their installation processes, the shift will happen.
One reason for taking time to adjust is that the predecessors from Liebherr have an operational lifetime of 80,000 hours. Allowing for maintenance, change overs, redeployments etc., this probably means 12 to 50 years before replacement.
It also probably means 2 years or more between ordering and delivery. I believe Fortescue ordered their EV excavator and associated equipment took at least 3 years. Then it is trialled before big decisions are made. During this time another product may become available possibly resetting plans.
It may be reasonable to have the small renewables in place so far although Fortescue seems to have greater vision and ambition, possibly making mistakes along the way.
I am looking forward to the zero energy train.
You are probably right.
Why invest in something today if something better might come along tomorrow?
I expect most businesses are run with that strategy.
But why it would be quicker baffles me. The electric motor is driving the same hydraulic system as the diesel version, same cylinders, same everything, just a different power source.
Instant torque. Instant response.Less lag waiting to achieve sufficient pressure.
Electric dragline excavators were in use at least 40 yrs ago
it’s not the first for BHP.
I recall use of a cable trailing electric shovel at the BHP Iron Monarch-Iron Knob pits near Whyalla in the 1960’s.
It might still be a roadside tourism feature at “the Knob”.
If you can generate your electricity on site, using solar panels or wind power, you save having to cart heavy diesel fuel over long distances, often over unsealed roads.
Generally, Australia has a sunny climate in the remote areas and is windy near the coast, (ideal for renewable energy).
The reason why Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party should be talking about expensive, polluting atomic power in Australia escapes me!
The reason why… is that the nuclear power will supplement the coal powered stations after they tax renewables into oblivion.
As somebody once said. “You can’t spell Coalition without coal”