Swedish mining company LKAB has quietly begun revolutionising underground mining, operating two battery electric Scania heavy tippers 1,250-metres underground.
The two semi-trailer electric trucks have been customised specifically for LKAB, each boasting a payload capacity of just over 70 tonnes and a battery energy volume of 624 kilowatt-hours (kWh).
It is not the first Scania electric truck LKAB has been using, following the delivery of a Scania 25P XT electric heavy tipper, which has been in use in daily operation since 2022.
But unlike the Scania 25P XT, which is used for surface transport at the Malmberget iron ore mine in Sweden, the two semi-trailer tipper trucks are operating in underground production environments, hauling ore from chutes to crushers.
“The environment is dark, but it’s ideal for electric vehicles,” said Pär Sundqvist, an electrification engineer at LKAB.
“We have good roads and a constant temperature of around 12 to 15 degrees Celsius, which is perfect for batteries.”
And according to Peter Gustavsson, project manager for electrification of mobile machines at LKAB, the two 120-tonne battery electric trucks are believed to be the world’s largest and heaviest underground mining trucks.
The trucks began work late last year, but according to Gustavsson, the trucks have racked up approximately 1,500 round trips during commissioning, transporting more than 100,000 tonnes of iron ore.
Writing on LinkedIn, Gustavsson reported that the trucks take operate for around 7 hours per recharge, which takes around 80 minutes at 375 kW, completing approximately 45 round trips per charge, moving a total of 3,200 tonnes on a single charge.
The next step for LKAB is to begin operating one of their battery electric trucks 24/7, which Gustavsson says has “the potential to fully replace a diesel equivalent in its production duty.”
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