Towards fleet power and energy management of parallel hoist operation in underground mines

Authors: Loss, T; Song, C; Eklundh, O; Thorburn, S; Sterner, T; Emanuelsson, M; Björk, C Download Paper

Cite As:
Loss, T, Song, C, Eklundh, O, Thorburn, S, Sterner, T, Emanuelsson, M & Björk, C 2024, 'Towards fleet power and energy management of parallel hoist operation in underground mines', in Daniel Johansson & Håkan Schunnesson (eds), MassMin 2024: Proceedings of the International Conference & Exhibition on Mass Mining, Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, pp. 1176-1185.



Abstract:
The EU regulation EB Article 53 (2017/2195) reducing the imbalance settlement period on the electricity market from 1 hour to 15 minutes will open for new needs within the mining industry. The regulation is expected to come into action in Sweden during 2024 for intraday market trading and in 2025 for day ahead trading. Hence, average power over 15 minutes may become more important to monitor and control in the mining operation. One process that can be affected in this timeframe is the hoisting process. Particularly when multiple hoists are in operation, effective control of their usage can significantly impact the average power demand as well as the energy trading dynamics. This paper presents how the hoist system in one of LKABs mines has been modelled in a simulation platform with focus on increasing the control resolution, namely 15 minutes instead of 1 hour. Also, the paper investigates how a slightly more extensive use of the material buffers can move energy demand between timeslots to monitor and control the average power need better. Simulations show how the peak power in a worst-case scenario can be reduced by better fleet management of the hoists to about 25%. In addition, a further reduction of 10% can be reached by also reducing the acceleration of the hoists by 20 % if spare capacity exists in the hoist process. The paper also discusses how energy storage can reduce power variations further and makes an estimation of needed storage size.