Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles in Surface Mining

In this work we compare the options of supplying heavy haul mining trucks used to transport mineral ore in open pit surface mines with two possible energy sources: batteries and hydrogen. Using a simple model of an archetypal deep mine where the material has to be transported upwards from the bottom of the pit where the trucks are loaded, all the way up to the dumping place where trucks are unloaded, and using merit figures for today’s technologies of batteries and hydrogen fuel cells we derive basic dimensioning rules and performance metrics for the resulting type of trucks, battery electric vehicles (BEV) and hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (HFCEV). Pros and cons of one and the other depend on the type of battery technology used and are benchmarked to current Diesel trucks.