The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) has committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Diesel-powered mining vehicles contribute 30 to 50% of direct emissions at mine sites, electrifying them will be critical to achieve global decarbonisation goals. Electrifying the mine presents challenges on assessing the impact on mine operations a change in fleet composition will have, as well as how best to operate the future of the mine with these new systems. Systems thinking and digital engineering tools can be used to enable timely, informed decisions to meet emission targets without productivity loss.
The proposed solution combines system engineering and physics simulators to allow the contextualisation of changes to operations driven by electrification. Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) will be used to create the Mine System Design, capturing the data and processes of the mine, the configuration of assets and the benchmark metrics and pass/ fail conditions. The Vehicle State Simulation will model detailed energy behaviour of the Haul Trucks (either Diesel or Electric). The Vehicle state simulation will receive variables from the Mine system to model the detailed energy consumption behaviour of trucks and incorporate this constraint into the system model.
By leveraging co-simulation ‘what-if’ scenarios of different fleet configurations and charging infrastructure can be benchmarked within the context of the mine as a system. Creating a realistic decision-making tool to accelerate the electrification process, driving efficient capital and investment planning and meeting emission targets.