Quantifying Electrification Requirement of Mobile Crushing Units in Swedish SME Quarries

Paper in proceeding, 2022

The European aggregate industry faces the same challenges as other large industries in meeting the Agenda 2030 goals of net-zero emissions, as stated by the Sustainability Development Goal 13 [1]. In Sweden, the aim is to achieve this by 2045, where the intermediate goal is to have accomplished a 50 % reduction by 2030. As for most industries, the main focus is to investigate how to phase out fossil fuels and fossil-driven vehicles which can contribute with approximately 65 % of the greenhouse gas emissions for a medium size aggregates plant, for a smaller, off the grid, sites this will be higher. The other large contributors to greenhouse gas emission includes the explosives and electrical consumption of the equipment. How much the actual contribution from diesel to greenhouse gas emission depends on the selection and configuration of the heavy machinery, configuration of the process and the geological location of the site.

This paper aims to describe the work done at Chalmers Rock Processing Systems and Stonepower AB within the first phase of Swedish Aggregates Producers Association project, Sustainable Smart Electrification of Small Quarries. The work aims to map out the crushers' electrical power requirements under different operating conditions in different quarries. This is to create a requirement specification for the development of a modular solution for more cost-effective battery-transformers package for a more economical feasible investment plan for smaller quarries.