Mining large Rio Tinto will companion with China’s State Energy Funding Company (SPIC) to display battery-swap-capable electrical haul vans on the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia.
The know-how is already in use on haul vans in mining operations in China, and this collaboration will allow Rio Tinto to display a whole battery-electric truck and charging ecosystem.
The 2-year venture will display 8 mining haul vans (91-tonne payload), 13 batteries (800 kWh), and a robotic battery swap and charging station. Technical consultants from Rio Tinto and Oyu Tolgoi have labored carefully with SPIC and truck producer Tonly to align the tools design with Rio Tinto’s necessities. The vans will carry out non-production actions within the aboveground operations—particularly, tailings dam rehabilitation work and topsoil motion.
Rio Tinto operates about 700 haul vans throughout its world operations, of which 100 are categorized as small or medium class (100-200-tonne payload).
Every battery is predicted to last as long as 8 hours, relying on the work carried out, and the battery swap course of takes round 7 minutes.
The primary truck is scheduled to reach at Oyu Tolgoi this yr and the remaining 7 vans, together with the battery swap and charging infrastructure, will probably be in operation by mid-2025.
Rio Tinto Chief Decarbonisation Officer Jonathon McCarthy stated: “This demonstration will permit us to discover purposes for battery-swapping know-how that ship extra flexibility and fewer downtime than present static charging applied sciences. This work will complement the electrification pilots of ultra-class mining haul vans deliberate for the Pilbara [in Australia].”
Supply: Rio Tinto
