3 minute read
Cameron Sharp, Mining & Utilities Segment Manager – Large Electric Power, Caterpillar of Australia Pty Ltd
Cameron Sharp is the local Mining Segment Manager for Caterpillar’s Large Electric Power Group. He comes from a technical background and has qualifications in Electrical, Mechanical, and Marine engineering.
Energy and Mines: How is the transition to electrified and decarbonised mines changing energy demand and use for miners?
Cameron Sharp: Electrification of Mining equipment significantly increases the energy demand of mines. Placing episodic energy demand on already capacity constrained electrical infrastructure. To meet the decarbonisation targets, infrastructure capacity will also need to increase in parallel with the pace of electrification and the renewable transition. We now need transformers and energy storage in the place of diesel bulk tanks.
EandM: What new approaches are mining companies taking to hybrid energy solutions as a result of GHG emissions goals?
CS: Renewable penetration is increasing as mining companies become more comfortable with hybrid technologies. More capable energy storage systems are allowing this to happen. Along with enabling higher penetration, Miners can now look at recouping excess energy from renewables instead of spilling it.
EandM: What type of fuel savings can miners now expect from integrating renewable energy and storage?
CS: It all depends on how much they wish to spend. The technology exists for 100% renewable solutions but this is generally cost prohibitive at this point in time. Fuel reductions are matched to capital outlay.
EandM: What are the main challenges of moving to larger hybrid solutions for offgrid mines?
CS: One of the major challenges is the available land to situate a solar or wind farm on.
EandM: How is the technology evolving to meet to support bigger and more complex mining microgrids?
CS: Caterpillar and our dealer network are in the fortunate position that our control platform and battery inverter the BDP1000 are already very capable of supporting bigger, more complex hybrid systems. Our grid forming batteryinverter has lightning fast response times in the 10-20ms range and a 200% overload capacity / 2 pu fault current contribution.
EandM: What are you hearing in terms of remaining barriers for mines adopting alternative energy solutions?
CS: The capital outlay for a hybrid systems is high - high capital expenditure / low operating expenditure. Things have changed significantly in recent years, to buy and install some generator sets used to be pretty low capex in comparison – low capital expenditure / high operating expenditure. The opex costs could be paid from the profit from the sale of the extracted resource, now the capex has to be funded by others or be incorporated into the mine set up costs which means raising significantly more investment. In Australia and other developed countries many miners utilise the services of an independent power producer to finance, own and operate the power system under a power purchase agreement (PPA). This route is not always as straight forward in other less developed countries.
