A major mine site began transitioning away from fossil fuels.
One of the nation’s first newly built electric heavy machines recently rolled out at Fortescue Metals Group’s (FMG’s) Cloudbreak operation.
Three Liebherr R 9400 E electric excavators will be deployed to the mine. The first was already rolled out at the time of publication while the other two will be commission sometime in the next 12 months.
Each will initially be powered by a 6.6kV substation with more than 2km of high voltage trailing cable. The proponent eventually hopes to run them on renewable energy.
“Commissioning of this fully electric excavator is … the first of its kind in Australia for the mining industry,” FMG chief executive officer Dino Otranto said in a public statement.
“Our Chichester operations which include Cloudbreak run partially off solar, enabling this first excavator to be powered using renewable electricity. Once we decarbonise our electricity grid all [of] these excavators will be operating on renewable electricity.”
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