Abstract
New Afton Mine (NAM) is currently evaluating battery electric vehicles (BEVs) as an alternative to a diesel fleet for its next underground production area. Current provincial legislation does not indicate a specific equivalent airflow requirement for BEVs as it does for diesel-powered equipment, nevertheless, it does specify personnel occupational exposure limits for dust (respirable dust and silica) among other substances, and heat stress. Based on this, an opportunity was identified by the NAM team to size the ventilation system for the BEV requirements, which were expected to be less than the diesel requirements based on a state of the art review. The NAM team and CanmetMINING collaborated in undertaking a study to gather the information required to better understand the impacts of using BEV equipment instead of diesel. The target equipment class for the study was the LHD category, and the objective was to determine what the active criteria is to establish the airflow rate when using electric motors instead of diesel engines. The diesel and BEV LHDs were tested under ramp grade conditions and then the BEV LHD was tested in a production drift environment. The test plan on the ramp included traveling up and down the ramp under loaded and empty combinations for material movement. The production test included moving material from the draw point to the re-muck and then loading the diesel trucks as they became available. In both tests, the operator was allowed to perform as he would have normally done to reflect current operational conditions. Further understanding of BEV technology and performance facing different work conditions is essential for designing a new mine or transforming an existing fossil fuel-based fleet into an electric mine. As a result, collecting fuel and energy consumption among other performance production parameters were also part of the test. This presentation includes the results of these tests in terms of the dust and heat stress contribution measurements obtained for the airflow volumes considered as well as fuel and energy consumption and generation through regenerative braking.