HIGH PROFILE
Steering the electric mine revolution
The Electric Mine 2020 keynote speaker puts the latest
mine electrification phenomenon into perspective
andvik Mining and Rock Technology, last
year, made a clear statement to the
underground mining equipment sector with
the acquisition of Artisan Vehicle Systems: the
future is electric.
With this acquisition having bedded in and
International Mining Events’ The Electric Mine
2020 conference, in Stockholm, Sweden, just
around the corner, IM caught up with Sandvik
Mining and Rock Technology President, Henrik
Ager, to get his views on current industry demand
for electric solutions and what other elements
could come into the OEM’s electrification offering
in the future.
S
IM: In your keynote presentation title for the
upcoming conference you have highlighted two
benefits to electrification, namely ‘productivity’
and ‘sustainability’. Would you say these are the
two most important criteria for companies
adopting, or thinking about adopting,
electrification solutions?
HA: Productivity, or rather mining economics, is
still the primary driver for any technology change.
If applying new technology allows you to lower
your cost or get more tonnes out of the operation,
it tends to make sense. If it doesn’t, it rarely
makes sense.
For electrification, we are getting to the point
where, when you compare a diesel machine with
an electric machine, the economics are starting to
be on a par. The electric machines tend to be
more expensive from a capital expenditure
(capex) point of view, but this upfront capital is
coming down; we haven’t yet made that many
machines but when we scale up production the
price will likely fall further.
Within this, the batteries are, of course, a big
capex item. To get around this, we will most likely
end up selling the battery as a service to
customers, so they pay per kilowatt hour as
opposed to investing outright in batteries.
Some of the benefits of using electric machines
include the maintenance costs being significantly
lower than with diesel-powered equipment. You
are also seeing you can get more productivity out
of the machines – with any electric motor, you get
a lot of torque. This latter point is of use in many
applications. For example, when you are running
an underground loader and loading your bucket,
torque control is very important. Being able to
precisely control this and get as much traction
from the tyres as possible allows you to more
accurately load the bucket. We should, therefore,
see better fill factors on the bucket with these
electric drivetrains; if you end up getting 10%
more in your bucket every time, it makes a
difference.
From an economic point of view, you also have
the potential ventilation benefits of having an
Sandvik has just delivered its 600th cable-electric loader to LKAB’s Kiruna iron ore mine, in Sweden
48 International Mining | MARCH 2020
“We predominantly make expensive and
productive machines. We don’t make low cost
or low productivity machines,” Henrik Ager says
electric drivetrain. The electric drivetrain will put
out some heat, but it is about one eighth of what
a diesel drivetrain puts out. Obviously, there are
no diesel particulates either, so you need to
ventilate a lot less. If you start inputting that into
your mine plan, then you end up saving a lot of
capex on ventilation shafts. That can bring an
orebody into being economically viable where it
wasn’t before. While that is not the case for all
mines and orebodies, it is relevant for many of
them.
IM: Does that total cost of operations argument
overcome upfront capex
concerns in countries that are
known to be more price
sensitive?
HA: There are some
geographies where price is
more prominent and others
where it is less prominent. But,
to put this into perspective, we
predominantly make expensive
and productive machines. We
don’t make low cost or low
productivity machines. So, we
have been fighting with this
same issue for a long time. Yes,
it is more difficult to overcome
capex issues in some places,
but there are still customers in
these areas that look at the full
productivity dynamic and
realise the cost of the machine
is only one piece of the puzzle.
In general, the more you