At greater than 4,500 m above sea degree, Chile’s Collahuasi is the third largest copper mine on the planet, and as outlined in a video the miner shared this week from Canal 13C’s in style programme Megaproyectos, it’s quickly paving the way in which for a extra sustainable future. It has set bold challenges similar to Mission 210, which can enhance the plant’s processing capability to 210,000 t/d, and Mission C20+, which, by means of a desalination plant, will considerably cut back the usage of contemporary water on this context of evolution and progress.
The innovation aimed toward larger sustainability additionally extends to its trolley help pilot challenge, a collaboration with Liebherr Mining, which Collahuasi says seeks to set the usual for the nationwide trade by making mining extra sustainable and environment friendly. It’s the first of its sort in South America, and entails 4 Liebherr T 284 400 ton class vehicles on a 1 km pilot trolley line. The pilot is now up and operating, and as such the learnings and outcomes will probably be of excessive significance for the trade, each South American copper, and elsewhere on the planet – particularly to see how a trolley system performs at excessive altitude with this prime finish measurement class of vehicles. Going ahead these learnings may also be invaluable as associated options become visible similar to battery trolley and hybrid trolley.
Manuel Vera, Collahuasi Supervisor of Asset Administration: “The thought of this challenge was to transform 4 vehicles with state-of-the-art expertise to generate the learnings that can enable us to look to the long run and enhance sustainability in initiatives and operations…on this electrified part, the vehicles will go considerably sooner and can enormously cut back their diesel consumption.”
He provides: “Right here we’re at 4,700 m the place we now have very excessive weather conditions. We’ve two winters, one excessive plateau winter when we now have intense atmospheric discharge or lightning, with a variety of rain, and we now have one other winter, the continental one we’re experiencing now, with very low temperatures, snow, and ice at instances. Due to this fact, the pilot turns into extra related as a result of we can take a look at the expertise in excessive circumstances and successfully generate learnings and enhancements.”
The potential advantages are vital: a drastic discount in diesel consumption, decrease greenhouse fuel emissions, and a big enhance within the vehicles’ climbing velocity. Carlos Nunez, Collahuasi Mine VP: “This pilot will enable us to confirm all the advantages of all of the research we’ve finished – in gas financial savings, in lowering emissions, in making for a safer course of, lowering harm and pressure on the truck engines…we’re doing a challenge on a ramp going up loaded of 1 km. With the outcomes of this pilot, we wish to assessment different areas, primarily within the first stage, within the waste dumps, which signify the best haul distances and subsequently the best calls for on our vehicles. Planning has been essential as a result of there are engineering challenge actions, electrical points, and different challenges to make it suitable with the operation. We’ve needed to prepare our operators.”
On the 1 km ramp, the truck travels at virtually double velocity. In order that has a significant impression on the effectivity of the cycle. Collahuasi gave a fast estimate, of saving round two minutes or so per cycle, which is big when contemplating the variety of truck cycles it has in a day. To the dump, the common cycle time for a dump is between 48 and 55 minutes.
The pilot challenge alone ought to cut back CO2 emissions by between 4,000 and 5,000 t per 12 months. In the present day, Collahuasi is at about 560,000 to 570,000 t of Scope 1 CO2 emissions. The thought is that this pilot, hopefully, will work effectively and may be scalable within the brief to medium time period. The elevating of the pantograph is computerized although the operator nonetheless must press a button to have interaction it and in addition decrease it on the finish of the trolley part.
Liebherr’s Govt Vice President R&D, Engineering and Manufacturing Oliver Weiss: “Our in depth expertise with trolley options reveals that vehicles on trolleys can journey as much as 1.8 instances sooner in comparison with diesel vehicles, which might translate uphill right into a 21% enchancment in productiveness. Liebherr’s expertise with trolley options spans over 50 400 ton vehicles and a fleet of 100 ton vehicles on the biggest trolley line on the planet with a distance of 5 km. Liebherr Mining began discussions with Collahuasi again in 2022, and the location introduced some challenges that wanted to be thought-about in design and implementation of a trolley line, all of which was our accountability, as we had been engaged to supply the total trolley resolution together with the infrastructure and the mining vehicles to Collahuasi.”
He provides: “Now that the vehicles are up and operating and the system is stay, Collahuasi will handle ongoing upkeep of the trolley line. Liebherr Mining has already offered coaching for truck operators and can proceed to assist them to make sure that vehicles and the trolley line can be utilized to their full potential. This has been a very collaborative challenge between Liebherr Mining and Collahuasi; it stands as a testomony to strategic partnerships.”
