Austmine knows that collaboration in the mining industry is the key to reaching near-term decarbonisation goals.
Though mining is essential to everyday life, as well as to the clean energy transition, it also has palpable effects on the environment. That’s why environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations have become a major talking point among mining executives and stakeholders.
Deloitte’s Tracking the Trends 2023 report – which highlights 10 key trends affecting the mining industry – suggested pressure for mining companies to decarbonise is coming from both ends of the supply chain, whether it’s manufacturers wanting carbon-neutral commodities or investors prioritising environmentally proactive companies.
Mining companies who fail to decarbonise will simply be left behind, making hitting ESG targets a matter of longevity.
Recognising both the importance and scope of this challenge, many miners have committed to reducing their emissions by between 25 and 50 per cent by 2030 and 2035. And for many of these companies, one of the most logical ways to achieve such a goal is through the electrification of diesel equipment.
But Austmine innovation facilitation lead Kevin West believes while miners are looking in the right direction, in many cases the task is too complex and time-consuming for a company to achieve on its own.
West is the mind behind Austmine’s latest collaborative opportunity hosted on its mineinnovate platform.
The opportunity, named Accelerated Vehicle Acquisition and Trialling, is aimed at introducing standardised solutions to help speed up asset selection and testing for battery electric vehicles on mine sites.
“Currently the process of acquiring new assets is hampered by supply and demand issues,” West told Australian Mining.
“Lead times are long, and the trial periods are uncovering unexpected issues due to differences between traditional and new energy solutions.
“Many miners are also considering retrofitting equipment to replace diesel as an accelerated approach to decarbonising their legacy assets.”
The problem is that mining companies – which are heavily process-driven entities – are going about the acquisition and testing of electric assets the same way as they always have with diesel assets. But market conditions and technologies have changed, which West said demands a new methodology – one driven by collaboration.
“Fundamentally, a power source has been taken out and until now miners have never had to look for alternatives,” West said.
“I remember a conversation I had with a particular company which ordered a battery electric truck,” he said.
“The truck had a lead time of 15 months, which blew out by an additional 20 months. That’s almost three years just to physically get their hands on the vehicle for trialling.
“It took two months to get that truck site ready. The trials they ran were exactly the same as what they had with diesel because they didn’t know how to trial it any differently. The truck failed just six months into the trial, and the company was back to square one.”
The idea of Austmine’s latest initiative is to bring mining companies and suppliers together, with the two parties to innovate new approaches for selecting and trialling electric vehicles on mine sites.
“There are some original equipment manufacturers that are creating simulation tools for rolling out electric vehicles, but they will only guarantee that for their assets and not others,” West said.
“What we’re looking to do is create a standardised tool available to all electric vehicle manufacturers.”
Suppliers have been invited to submit proposals as part of the initiative, with selected suppliers to partner with mining companies to rapidly build:
- confirmation of the capability of their selected vehicle
- emission savings comparison data
- charging requirements for the vehicle and locations for charging equipment
- test data for vehicle trials
- a reusable template for trialling different configurations.
“The outcome of this opportunity will allow miners to run side-by-side comparisons of how different vehicles will perform in circumstances specific to each mine site,” West said.
“If a company is tossing up between five different trucks, the standardised tool can help them figure out which truck will be able to achieve their targets, taking into consideration charging requirements, carbon emissions, and whatever else. This is where the template becomes reusable.
“Instead of a year-long trial, you’re trialling against the test data. This will allow miners to compress trials down from a year to just weeks.”
West said Austmine’s Accelerated Vehicle Acquisition and Trialling opportunity will be the first in a series.
“We want to run a second challenge in the near-term that basically says: now that we understand how a single asset is going to perform, how do we upscale that if a site needs 14 of these?” he said.
“Everyone’s looking for the silver bullet that’s going to solve their ESG problems. But a bullet has a head, a shell, a charge, a primer.
“And the size of the bullet depends on whatever it is you’re trying to achieve. So in the context of the mining industry’s current challenges, that silver bullet needs to be created collaboratively by bringing the pieces together.”
This feature appeared in the March 2024 issue of Australian Mining.