Posted by Paul Moore on 1st November 2024
As outlined in an announcement shared with the Chinese language media by Rio Tinto to coincide with a mission celebration ceremony assembly, the Tier 1 miner and China’s State Energy Funding Company Ltd (SPIC) inexperienced vitality firm SPIC Qiyuan are collaborating to pilot battery swapping expertise on the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia. The 2-year mission will showcase a full battery-electric truck ecosystem, that includes eight 91-ton Tonly model huge physique vans, 13 batteries (every 800 kWh), and a battery-swapping station, permitting for fast vitality replenishment and minimising downtime.
Battery swapping means you’ll be able to change the battery of an electrical mining truck at a battery swap station with out the necessity to cost the automobile at a hard and fast charging facility.
Jonathon McCarthy, Chief Decarbonisation Officer at Rio Tinto, was quoted saying that Rio Tinto and SPIC are cooperating to hold out utility pilots for China’s current cutting-edge applied sciences and improvements and consider their potential to assist Rio Tinto cut back operational carbon emissions. “This pilot mission will assist us discover the appliance of pure electrical battery swapping expertise, which may present larger flexibility and cut back downtime in contrast with present mounted charging expertise.” He added that this work will complement ongoing pilot initiatives for the electrification of very massive mining vans within the Pilbara area.
Han Zhiwei, Chairman of SPIC Capital Holdings Co Ltd, mentioned that via cooperation with Rio Tinto Group, SPIC has efficiently launched main inexperienced transportation improvements to the worldwide market and appears ahead to extra cooperation alternatives sooner or later to use China’s improvements.
Based on the discharge, these vans might be chargeable for performing tailings dam restore and floor soil transportation duties, and might be operated and maintained by the Oyu Tolgoi mining crew. The truck is designed to run for eight hours per cost, and the battery substitute course of takes about seven minutes. By minimising vitality replenishment and outage time, the automobile attendance price might be improved. The primary truck is scheduled to reach on the Oyu Tolgoi mining space this yr, and the remaining seven vans and charging and swapping infrastructure might be put into use in mid-2025.
Battery swapping is already comparatively frequent in China for huge physique mining truck fleets. Ren Hua, Normal Supervisor – World Mining Equipment Enterprise Division at XCMG, China’s main mining tools OEM, not too long ago instructed IM at MINExpo 2024: “Our main answer stays stationary plug-in charging, however we’re additionally growing dynamic charging applied sciences. We’ve delivered quite a lot of battery swapping options for wide-body vans, permitting battery packs to be swapped from each side or the highest. Though battery swapping is tougher for bigger inflexible vans, we’re actively conducting research to adapt this expertise for them as nicely.”
