Technology
Charging towards better battery operations WITH A GLOBAL SHIFT TOWARDS DECARBONISATION, ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURER EPIROC IS AT THE FOREFRONT OF PROVIDING BATTERY ELECTRIC SOLUTIONS FOR THE MINING AND RESOURCES INDUSTRY.
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he Western Australian Government has released the state’s first-ever environment, social and governance (ESG) information pack, which includes Minerals Research Institute of Western Australia (MRIWA) challenges as an essential component to achieving the outcomes. The MRIWA has two challenges that appear in the ESG information pack, including the Net Zero Emission Mining challenge which aims to reduce the carbon footprint, lower overall energy costs and improve the energy efficiency of the WA mining sector through harnessing collective efforts and enabling decarbonisation to become an opportunity for the sector rather than a cost.
One of the keys to reducing the carbon footprint in the resources sector is the adoption of battery electric machinery and equipment. Global original equipment manufacturer Epiroc has recently bolstered its support for battery electric vehicles with a range of charging products for mining equipment, both fixed and mobile, with remote monitoring capabilities. Epiroc Australia and Asia-Pacific electrified solutions product and sales support lead. Brett Kenley says the company has made massive strides when it comes to its battery electric offering. “Our first battery equipment that we released goes back to about 2013, which was a little ST7 loader and a matching
Epiroc’s ST14 uses four battery sub-packs.
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20-tonne truck,” he says. “That was more to prove the concept that we could use battery equipment underground and it certainly proved that concept. “However, our first generation didn’t have any on-board cooling, so we now have a thermal management system onboard. Kenley says with Epiroc’s first generation battery system, in order to run one machine, the company needed three batteries - one on-board, one on the charge and then one cooling. “What we have now is our secondgeneration batteries, which are provided by Northvolt, and that has an on-board cooling system, also known as our thermal managing system,” he says. “So while it is on the charge it is
