AWS for Industries
The electrification revolution: Powering the mine of the future
The transition to net-zero is driving unprecedented demand for the critical minerals needed in everything from electric vehicles to wind turbines. Meeting this surging demand is leading the mining industry to a technological revolution of its own – an electrification revolution.
Traditionally, mining operations have relied heavily on diesel-powered trucks, excavators, and mobile machinery to extract and transport materials. Many mines are located in remote areas and, isolated from national electricity grids, they rely entirely on diesel for electricity generation.
With diesel fuel consumption alone contributing to over 50% of some miner’s scope 1 GHG emissions, miners are making bold commitments to reduce or eliminate diesel use, spurring an industry shift toward battery electric, fuel cell, and hybrid technologies.
The electric mine of the future will consume vastly more electricity with a significantly different demand profile than today’s operations. Mines will need to tightly coordinate operational demand with on-site or grid supply all while meeting increasing production targets. To do this, miners must take a coordinated, smart approach to managing their entire energy ecosystem.
The challenge of increased electricity demand
The sheer scale of electrified equipment is impressive. Take Fortescue’s prototype Liebherr T264 fuel cell/battery electric haul truck 1 – at 1.6 MWh, it packs the battery capacity of 25 typical all-electric sedans. A 30 min fast charge could draw approximately 3.2 MW of power, and when you consider that a large open-pit mine can have over 100 trucks, the demand quickly adds up.
Mine operators must carefully plan and manage this surging energy use to make sure of reliable and efficient operations. Achieving this requires tight integration between operational mining and advanced energy management systems to coordinate the charging of electric vehicles, optimizing the dispatch of on-site generation, and managing grid interaction.
Operators isolated from the grid must add new generation, likely renewables such as wind and solar that present intermittency challenges, and on-site grid-scale storage will be critical for making sure of the stability of these tightly coupled operations. It’s not infeasible to see small modular reactors being deployed, particularly where large amounts of process heat are necessary, to support base-load demand. And those on the grid who seek to offset utility supply with on-site renewable generation must remain responsive to grid conditions and market pricing.
What this means is that miners must forecast their energy needs, automatically dispatch generation and storage, and smartly charge their electric fleet. Those who can successfully integrate these elements into a cohesive energy management strategy can gain a competitive advantage. However, delivering this strategy requires a new way of thinking about technology.
With the ever-increasing number of sensors integrated into equipment and infrastructure, the capture, processing, and analysis of the increasingly vast amount of data is becoming more challenging. Furthermore, to rapidly respond to changing conditions, this data needs to be processed and analyzed more frequently and often in real-time. Add in the compute needed by increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) models, and it’s clear that traditional infrastructure models don’t offer the capacity or flexibility to make it work.
Participating in a flexible energy ecosystem
Although the challenges of meeting increased electricity demand are significant, the opportunities presented by equipment electrification are substantial. With smart energy management, mines can not only become more flexible consumers, but also they have the potential to be important partners for the larger grid. Their large, flexible loads could help integrate renewable energy and enhance grid resilience through services such as frequency regulation and demand response.
For example, coordination with grid operators could enable charging of a mine’s electric fleet to be ramped up or down in response to wider grid conditions, such as limiting demand to avoid the dispatch of fossil generation or to help manage the intermittency of renewables. It’s not a stretch to see a mine make more money selling electricity back in to the grid during periods of peak demand than they would using it to haul ore.
But energy and mine infrastructure are by their nature distributed across large areas and remote locations, and the lack of or poor connectivity is often cited as a blocker for cloud adoption. Although existing satellite services may be able to provide connectivity, they often lack the ease of use, cost effectiveness, and cybersecurity requirements to enable widespread deployment. However, this will soon change with Amazon’s Project Kuiper, a low earth orbit satellite constellation that will offer unparalleled speed and latency across much of the globe. Importantly, Project Kuiper extends a user’s secure cloud environment to the edge, allowing data to flow from critical operational systems without traversing the public internet.
Figure 1: Project Kuiper’s high level architecture
Dealing with the data deluge
Many organizations struggle to effectively analyze the data they capture today, and enablers such as Project Kuiper will only add to the challenge. Effectively dealing with this data deluge means thinking smart and building big – and cloud can help.
Through the application of techniques such as distributed and serverless computing, batch processing, and high-performance computing, organizations can think big. The extensive global infrastructure footprint of Amazon Web Services (AWS) means resources such as compute and storage are close to the source. This makes sure of low latency and adherence to regional compliance requirements.
Thinking smarter by using fit-for-purpose services decreases development time and improves agility. Event-driven architectures create flexible systems that consume resources only when and for as long as needed. Spot compute can provide access to resources at a lower cost while scaling to tens-of-thousands of CPU cores. Integration through defined APIs enables interoperability and improves data quality. The list goes on.
Rethinking how an enterprise builds and operates technology infrastructure is a continuous process. The incredible progress and adoption of Generative AI is a great example. Traditional lifecycles result in infrastructure sized and commissioned before Generative AI existed in its current form. In the cloud, you have easy access to the latest technology without needing to manage physical hardware. Moreover, purpose-built silicon such as the Graviton4, Trainium, and Inferentia chips significantly improve processing speed while using less power.
Enabling the net-zero future
As the mining industry continues its transition to net-zero, the electric mine will become the new normal. Electrifying mobile equipment will result in reduced fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, but coordinating increased demand will be a major challenge. Being an active participant in the energy ecosystem requires deep integration from generation through to consumption, and the Cloud can help enable this by providing the scale and advanced capabilities necessary for grid scale optimization.
Mines that master energy management and become flexible energy partners will thrive in the sustainable economy of the future. The electric mine won’t just be a consumer of electricity – it will be an integral part of the clean energy grid.