MINING ENGINES
internal combustion engines into carbon-neutral
territory.”
Moving into this territory will take further work
and innovation. This is why the company is
teaming up with many other organisations on
“sector-coupling” projects.
“In the power-to-x process, surplus electrical
power from renewable energy sources is used to
create carbon-neutral fuel,” Woodruff said.
“Carbon-based fuels are then made to be
environmentally friendly.”
MethQuest, supported by the German Ministry
of Economic Affairs & Energy, is one such project the
company is engaged in to prove that methodology.
“MethQuest aims to develop and investigate
technologies that can be used to extract methanebased
fuels from renewable sources, use them in
mobile and stationary applications, and efficiently
bring them to the market,” the European Institute
for Energy Research says.
It involves 27 partners from research, industry
and the energy sector all intent on developing
solutions for the use of methane-based fuels in
transport and energy supply.
Woodruff explains why methane was selected
as the fuel of choice for this project: “The
production process of methane is less complex, so
delivers a higher level of efficiency that positively
impacts production costs. For instance, one-onone,
you can replace the fossil fuels with this
carbon-neutral fuel, and existing infrastructure
networks are used to transport the fuel without
expensive modifications.”
Another power-to-x project the company is
involved in is looking to construct a demonstration
plant to produce synthetic fuels and chemical
substances using electric power generated in
photovoltaic solar and wind power plants.
Rolls-Royce business unit Power Systems is
setting up a power-to-x competence centre at the
Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-
Senftenberg, a university situated in the former
coal and chemical region of Lausitz, Germany, to
look into this.
Other signatories to the letter of intent Rolls-
Royce signed include the German Aerospace
Center, chemical company BASF, the Lufthansa
Group and the electrolysis specialist Sunfire.
Rolls-Royce is not the only one exploring the
idea of running engines on synthetic fuels.
Liebherr says it is developing “climate-friendly”
injection solutions for the use of hydrogen and
synthetic fuels, with its Components Division
looking at new injector concepts using alternative
fuels that could be integrated into existing engine
platforms for heavy-duty applications including
mining equipment. As part of the research work,
initial tests with methanol-based fuels have
already been carried out, it says.
Many companies on the stationary side are also
considering going down a similar path.
Building off its award-winning work in the predictive analytics space, Dingo says it is working with
its customers to build Remaining Useful Life (RUL) models for component groups using massive
datasets and powerful statistical models.
This approach uses statistics in place of machine learning and will help fast track Dingo’s
ability to provide miners with valuable RUL estimates for a large portion of their fleet, it said.
Engines were selected as the first component group for model development due to their high
value and criticality to hitting operational and production targets, Dingo said. “Moreover, engines
lend themselves to this type of model due to a significant percentage of common failure modes
sharing wear material or combustion-related indicators,” it said. “Engines and their failure modes
also tend to be similar in a broad range of operating environments.”
The end goal is to provide all customers with a way to “estimate” the remaining useful life of a
large number of components in Trakka, without requiring the development of highly complex and
very specific machine-learning models the company has been working on with select customers
and component/failure types, it said.
Colin Donnelly, Director of Product Engineering, said Dingo's competitive edge lay in its use of
actual failure data to resolve equipment issues for its customers.
“This longstanding practice has enabled Dingo to build a vast database of component life
history and condition monitoring data, which is augmented by deep maintenance expertise on
the importance of potential RUL indicators,” he said. “In this type of model, the ability to correctly
identify and appropriately weight the indicators is essential to the accuracy of the output.”
Dingo says it is excited to bring this new RUL capability to market, as it will allow more miners
to proactively manage maintenance and confidently plan replacements on large component
groups, resulting in optimised repair costs, budgeting and supply chain management.
Wärtsilä, earlier this year, said it was
developing the combustion process in its gas
engines to enable them to burn 100% hydrogen
fuel. Its engines are already capable of
combusting 100% synthetic carbon-neutral
methane and methanol, it added.
Swedish Stirling AB, meanwhile, has created a
container-based energy recycling solution – the
PWR BLOK 400-F – which uses Swedish Stirling’s
Stirling engines for recovering energy from
industrial residual and flare gases and converting
them to 100% carbon-neutral electricity at a high
rate of efficiency. This is catching on in South
Africa’s ferrochrome sector, with two of the
country’s major producers already buying into the
technology and concept.
Woodruff thinks the use of synthetic, carbonneutral
fuels – with this “captured CO 2” – will have
a major impact on the journey to decarbonise the
environment.
“The combustion engine may have a longer
life,” he said. “If it is powered by carbon-neutral
fuel, the diesel internal combustion engine will
continue to power the world’s heavy duty mobile
equipment.”
Consulting on decarbonisation
Industry collaboration, such as witnessed in
Germany with MethQuest, is critical for many of
these solutions to become feasible.
Take Anglo American’s hydrogen fuel cell haul
truck project, in South Africa, for example.
This project has seen Anglo contract onhighway
specialists such as Ballard Power
Systems and Williams Advanced Engineering for
fuel cell modules and power units, respectively.
ENGIE, an energy and energy services company
providing the “hydrogen generation solutions” to
Anglo, has also sought the expertise of Nel
Hydrogen Electrolyser AS, a subsidiary of Nel ASA,
for a 3.5 MW electrolyser for the project, while
Plug Power Inc has been requested to deliver a
custom refuelling system.
This is the sort of partnership and cross-sector
involvement that will be required to get any
revolutionary power solution off the ground.
Those power companies that have a close
relationship with OEMs, the wider supply chain,
and the mining end users will fare best when it
comes to making these technological leaps, as
Hedström acknowledges.
“For the mining segment, we see a continued
strong interest in electromobility and, as Volvo
Penta is taking a full system supplier approach,
we favour a strong collaboration and partnership
with OEMs and operators in implementing the
new technologies, and to secure an improvement
in the total cost of ownership,” he said.
These types of projects will see power
companies, in some cases, becoming consultants,
engineers, raw materials suppliers and even more,
with mining companies outlining their power
needs and asking their suppliers to come up with
a fit-for-purpose solution.
“Our mission is about delivering an
environmentally friendly solution for the required
power at that mine site,” Woodruff explains. “In
that context, I don’t think putting a power-to-x fuel
plant on a site is impossible.”
Those engine manufacturers that are able to
effectively partner on green, renewable power
options, while leveraging their existing offering or
R&D, are the ones likely to fare best in such an
energy supply transition. IM
JULY/AUGUST 2020 | International Mining 45