Volvo, Boliden deploy EV mining trucks

Starting this year, Swedish mining group Boliden will begin incorporating heavy battery-electric trucks into its underground transport fleet, beginning with two vehicles from Volvo Trucks.

Diesel engines are a major contributor to carbon dioxide emissions and hydrocarbons in underground mines – this poses a safety challenge that must be managed to ensure the health of below-ground miners. Diesel exhaust also increases the carbon footprint of mining companies seeking to reach net-zero CO2 emissions.

Boliden is a metals company in the global market with a focus on sustainable development within the fields of exploration, mining, smelting, and recycling. The group's open pit and underground mines in Sweden, Finland, and Ireland are some of the world's most productive; utilizing new technologies such as remote-controlled rigs, and now electric vehicles.

In these environments, the electric truck offers the advantage of zero emissions, quieter working conditions, improved torque and ramp speeds, increased safety, regenerative braking technology, and other benefits.

"We see the collaboration with Volvo as a fantastic opportunity to push the electric technology forward and at the same time learn how to adapt our operations for a transition to fossil-free underground transport. A major benefit of the trucks is that they will contribute to a more sustainable mine, both in terms of emissions and also the working environment for our employees," said Dennis Forslund, project manager at Boliden. "In addition, the total amount of energy consumed in the mine will be lower as electric drive is more energy efficient than a diesel engine, and it is possible to capture the electricity regenerated during engine braking on downhill slopes."

This partnership between Boliden and Volvo will provide two heavy trucks for Boliden's Kankberg copper-zinc-gold-silver-tellurium mine in northern Sweden. The pilot vehicle will be a Volvo FH Electric used to transport rock bolts and other equipment.

Following the first truck's success, a second will be added to the fleet for underground transport of rock and ore.

Volvo currently offers the battery-electric vehicle (BEV) industry's broadest heavy truck lineup. You can read more about Volvo's BEVs at Out in front: Volvo heads electrification in the February 24, 2023 edition of Metal Tech News.

"This is an exciting collaboration in an environment with very tough demands; steep slopes, heavy loads and humid air that wears on the vehicles," says Jessica Lindholm, project manager at Volvo Trucks. "The collaboration with Boliden will give us valuable knowledge about the performance of electric trucks when driven underground and provide answers to questions about how the driveline and batteries are affected. Reduced carbon dioxide emissions for mining transport also means that we, indirectly, will reduce our own CO2 emissions, because the mining industry's raw materials are used in our trucks."

Ideally, a fully electrified fleet in Kankberg would reduce the mine's CO2 emissions more than 25%, a step toward accomplishing Boliden's climate goal commitment of reducing 40% of its overall CO2 emissions by 2030.