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Conuma Coal, which operates three metallurgical coal mines in northeastern British Columbia is electrifying its fleet of haul trucks at one of its mines.
The company plans to replace its fleet of diesel trucks with five hybrid electric mine haul trucks made by Komatsu at its Wolverine mine.
While electrifying the fleet will reduce carbon emissions, it’s actually costs and efficiency that are driving the decision to convert to electric trucks.
Electric vehicles require less maintenance and are more durable, the company says in a press release.
“Based on comprehensive engineering and financial analysis, Conuma determined that the deployment of new Komatsu 830E-5 haul trucks at Wolverine would meaningfully increase production at the mine, largely due to the improved overall availability of the Komatsu electric drive haul trucks,” the company said in a news release.
The first Komatsu electric truck arrived at the mine in August. The other four trucks are expected to arrive at the mine sometime in the next two months.
(This article first appeared in Business in Vancouver)
3 Comments
Joe
I hate to inform you but, the 830E-5 is a diesel-electric haul truck. The big 16 cylinder, Cummins 2000hp diesel powerplant turns a generator which powers electric wheel motors. We’ve found at our mine that the Komatsu 830 trucks burn more fuel in a 24-hour period than the comparable Cat 793F, which is a diesel, direct drive, haul truck.
One last side note, our Komatsu 830 trucks are plagued by constant electrical gremlins whereas the Cats rarely go down unscheduled. The two brands of trucks are apple’s to oranges. Either this author of the article misunderstood the company’s statement or failed to research these trucks.
Nightrider
All-electric, or diesel over electric wheel motors, as is standard for these big haulers?
don moore
this is a hybrid electric and Business in Vancouver has updated the article