The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has announced a $10 million grant has been given to Fortescue to develop and build a first of its kind fast chargers for heavy mine site vehicles.
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Fortescue’s $35.3 million ‘Fast Charger for Heavy Battery Electric Vehicles’ project will develop 6 MW fast chargers, capable of charging 240 tonne battery electric trucks in under 30 minutes.
ARENA CEO Darren Miller says the project will help reduce emissions in one of Australia’s most carbon intensive industries.
“ARENA is working to reduce emissions from Australia’s heavy industry, with heavy haulage high on the priority list for the mining sector,” he says.
“Heavy haulage for remote mine sites contributes around a quarter of the mining industry’s emission and is considered a hard to abate sector, so we’re investing in the technologies that will be part of the solution.”
The project is the next stage of fast charger development for Fortescue, building on an existing 3 MW prototype.
Once developed, the fast charger will be installed, demonstrated, and tested at Fortescue’s Hazelmere and Christmas Creek mine sites.
“If the fast charger can be successfully validated at the operational Christmas Creek mine site, we’d like to see the technology widely deployed across Australia’s resources industry,” he says.
“These are the kinds of challenges ARENA is looking to address through the Industrial Transformation Stream.”
With global charging system standardisation in mind, the fast charger will be developed, ensuring compatibility with any equipment that meets the connector standard across mining, rail, and other heavy industry applications.
Australian iron ore mining produces about 5 million tonnes of CO2 each year due to fleet diesel consumption and pathways to decarbonising mine operations are currently limited by a lack of commercially available solutions on the market.
Fortescue CEO Ellie Coates says these innovative chargers are designed to be a safe, high power and scalable fast charging solution for multiple different vehicle applications.
“Leveraging our world-class capability in battery and charging solutions from motorsport, the fast chargers have been developed for the challenging conditions of the Pilbara,” she says.
“Equipped with robotic connection options, they will be able to power Fortescue’s future 240-tonne Liebherr T 264 battery electric trucks in just 30 minutes.”
Preliminary testing is currently underway, with the project due to be completed in late 2025.
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