Electric trucks may be 33pc less productive than diesel
Battery-powered mine trucks would haul less ore and spend less time on the road than diesel-fuelled alternatives, delivering a productivity hit of between 19 per cent and 33 per cent to Australia’s biggest export industry.
A study of the most viable truck decarbonisation options found miners producing bulk commodities such as coal or iron ore would need to spend more money deploying a higher number of trucks plus recharging infrastructure if they wanted to maintain output volumes when switching to a zero emissions fleet.
Mining technology consultancy Idoba said the switch to electric mining trucks was unlikely to be seamless and the next generation of mines could be designed differently to better suit the charging needs of electric trucks.
Idoba head of mine automation and technology Craig Rodgers studied the viability of switching to electric mine trucks with batteries that would either need to be recharged, swapped or supported by overhead power cable networks, known as “trolley assist”.
The study found that battery charging would consume more time thandiesel refuelling and reduce the availability of a typical mine truck by 12.5 per cent.
The weight of batteries would also reduce the amount of ore carried by trucks; the study found the type of battery needed for a typical 230-tonne truck would be at least double and potentially three times heavier than diesel fuel tanks and engines.
“This would result in an overall reduction in productivity of 19 per cent for the NCA case (batteries with nickel, cobalt and aluminium cathode chemistries), and 33 per cent for LFP case (batteries with lithium, iron and phosphate cathode chemistries),” the report said.
Compared with diesel trucks, the productivity hit would be between 11.2
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