Australian mining company Fortescue has received an A$10m ($6.48m) grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to develop fast chargers for heavy electric vehicles used in mining.
Fortescue's Fast Charger for Heavy Battery Electric Vehicles project will see the development of 6MW fast chargers, expanding the company’s current 3MW fast charger prototype development.
These new fast chargers are designed to recharge 240t battery electric trucks in less than 30 minutes.
Currently, preliminary testing of the technology is in progress, with the project expected to reach completion by late 2025.
Once ready, they will be installed and tested for efficacy and efficiency at Fortescue's Hazelmere and Christmas Creek mine sites.
This initiative is part of a broader effort to reduce carbon emissions in Australia's industrial sectors.
The funding comes through the Australian Government's Industrial Transformation Stream, which falls under the Powering the Regions Fund.
With a total budget of A$400m, the programme seeks to decrease emissions at existing industrial sites across regional Australia.
ARENA CEO Darren Miller said: “ARENA is working to reduce emissions from Australia’s heavy industry, with heavy haulage high on the priority list for the mining sector.
“Heavy haulage for remote mine sites contributes around a quarter of the mining industry’s emissions and is considered a hard-to-abate sector, so we are investing in the technologies that will be part of the solution.”
A key consideration in the development of these chargers is their compatibility with global charging system standards. This ensures they can be used with any equipment that adheres to the connector standard, not just in mining but potentially in rail and other heavy industries as well.
The iron ore mining industry in Australia is a significant source of CO₂ emissions, with an estimated five million tonnes produced annually from fleet diesel consumption.
The lack of commercially viable solutions has been a barrier to decarbonising mine operations, a challenge this project aims to address.
Miller added: “If the fast charger can be successfully validated at the operational Christmas Creek mine site, we would like to see the technology widely deployed across Australia’s resources industry. These are the kinds of challenges ARENA is looking to address through the Industrial Transformation Stream.”
Last month, Fortescue awarded a more than $400m (2.9bn yuan) contract to Chinese heavy machinery manufacturer XCMG to supply more than 100 pieces of zero-emissions heavy mobile equipment.
