The world’s three biggest iron ore miners have launched a global competition to electrify their giant haul truck fleet in a bid to cut emissions from diesel fuel.Traditional arch rivals Rio Tinto, BHP and Brazilian giant Vale are collaborating on the initiative in partnership with Australia’s mining equipment, technology and services (METS) industry body Austmine.The so-called Charge On Innovation Challenge aims to seek solutions to the long 6-8 hour daily downtime involved in charging batteries capable of powering 600t haul trucks.The miners say they need multi-megawatt scale fast charging concepts capable of delivering around 400 kilowatt-hour to charge and power a truck within its haul cycle.BHP, Rio Tinto and Vale are among the world’s top 100 carbon polluters particularly when the emissions of their customers are included, but each has set a target to be carbon neutral by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.Austmine chief executive Christine Gibbs Stewart said the METS sector and mining companies were united on the challenge to reduce emissions across the supply chain.“With 80 per cent of METS companies supplying products and services outside mining, the challenge leverages the experience and innovation of industries in the automotive, battery makers, aerospace, defence and other sectors,” she said.“We expect the challenge will attract companies from a broad range of sectors including mining, automotive, aerospace, agriculture, and defence to deliver selected charging concepts to create a standard product that can interface with all trucks.”BHP’s Minerals Australia boss Edgar Basto said he expected the challenge would stimulate innovative ideas, some of which could be immediately applied to existing diesel-electric equipment and help fast-track implementation of longer-term solutions.“We understand that these challenges will not be solved overnight, but together we can find the best concepts that can be applied across the industry.”Rio’s safety, technical and projects executive Mark Davies described the challenge as a global call-out to innovators to change the way haul truck systems operated in the mining sector. “Innovation is the key to decarbonisation, and we expect the challenge will deliver exciting new concepts that could drive huge long-term benefits for our industry and the environment,” he said.“Partnerships and collaborations across a diverse range of sectors can drive significant technological change.“This is an important, industry-wide approach that has potential to create new jobs and opportunities for suppliers, both globally and locally.”Vale ferrous engineering director Carlos Mello said the industry needed to develop new charging solutions that could be incorporated into operations in parallel with the development of battery trucks.As well as drastically reducing carbon emissions, the miners are interested in electrifying their haul trucks to cut replacement and maintenance costs given electric vehicles have considerably fewer moving parts.Several vendors are already developing technologies the could be applied to mine electrification.The challenge aims to demonstrate an emerging market for charging solutions in mining, accelerate commercialisation of solutions and integrate innovations from other industries into the sector.Expressions of interest open on Tuesday, 18 May, with candidates making the short list expected to pitch their concepts later in the year.
Expand
(20min delay)