We are leading the charge towards sustainability and mining by offering a complete electrification solution. Let us explain how we are supporting the transition to more efficient ways of mining underground, with reduced environmental impact. By pushing the boundaries within automation, digitalization, and electrification, we are constantly improving safety and reducing our environmental impact. Our battery technology is designed for interoperability and connectivity, providing detailed insights and an instant overview of electric fleets. We have an industry-leading battery system that has been developed with safety and modularity in mind. Individual parts of the battery can be monitored and controlled separately, protected by a built-in multi-layered safety system.
Our wide range of battery electric underground vehicles are designed to offer the highest safety and productivity with a reduced amount of service and maintenance required, built to match and even exceed the performance of traditional diesel equipment, while consuming 70% less energy and producing 70% less heat. Our ambition is to offer the world's greenest machines, using the world's greenest batteries and the world's greenest metals. Within our portfolio, we offer loaders, trucks, and drill rigs, with a commitment of providing a full range of emissions-free underground products by 2025. We offer a comprehensive circular business model, where we can take full responsibility throughout the entire life cycle of the battery. Safety, flexibility, and functionality are at the heart of our offering.
Depending on your operation, our battery system can either be purchased as a part of the equipment, standalone, or as Batteries as a Service, offering the full spectrum of options. Battery conversions are a major cornerstone in the journey to accelerate the shift to electric underground mines. Conversions are also cost-efficient and utilize the full potential of a low total cost of ownership. We will support and help facilitate your switch from diesel-powered equipment to battery electric vehicles. With battery electric vehicles comes the need for charging. We offer flexible charging solutions for different types of battery electric vehicles. Our chargers are also connected, which means they can be accessed remotely when they need any attention.
Through strategic acquisitions, we strengthen our capacity to connect and build the infrastructure required for mines as they shift to battery electric vehicles. One important part of the infrastructure is our battery swap system.
This is a safe and scalable solution that allows multiple machines to swap batteries at a common charging station. Storage is key for the renewable energy transition, helping you proactively manage challenges like peak shaving, frequency stabilization, and power backup. We offer second-life solutions, energy storage, as well as recycling, ensuring a complete and sustainable cycle. With our circular business model, industry-leading technologies, and complete electrification offering, we make sure your mining operation focuses on a future of sustainable productivity, significant cost savings, and a healthier workplace.
Hello, and welcome to this electrification update with Epiroc. My name is Karin Larsson, and I work with investors here at Epiroc. In every meeting, we get questions about our electrification solution, how it works, how it brings value to our customers, and how it brings value to us at Epiroc. I am not an expert in these areas, but I have invited two colleagues of mine that can tell us everything about it. At the end of this Q&A, at this session today, you can ask questions over the webcast. You just send them in your little click on the webcast. Thank you. So hello, my dear colleagues-
Hello.
... Erik and Jérôme.
Hello.
How are you today?
Doing very good.
You're doing very good?
Very good, yeah.
Fantastic.
Glad to be here.
Yes, glad to be here, too. And actually, everything I know about our electrification solution is thanks to Erik. So why don't we start with you, Erik?
All right.
Who are you, and how long have you been with Epiroc?
Yeah, so Erik, I started with Epiroc in 2003. Worked in various positions over the years, but since 2010, I've been working with electrification in for Epiroc in one way or another. And specifically, let's say the last 30 years with battery development of our machines and technologies. Yeah.
Very exciting. Thank you for taking the time today.
Mm-hmm.
Jérôme, pleased to have you on board as well. Welcome to Epiroc. Can you please tell me about yourself, and what you like the most with our electrification solution?
Sure. So thanks for inviting me. I'm really excited to be with you today. So I'm Jérôme Cloué. I joined the company three months ago, so I'm quite quite new in the organization. I have background in automotive, automation and control solution, and sustainability.
Mm-hmm.
My role with Epiroc is basically to drive the electrification journey of the company and really accelerate the transformation of the industry when it relates to electrification. What I like very much with our solution is that we are really looking at electrification with a kind of end-to-end and complete solution perspective. We are not just focusing on battery machines. So that's really, to me, which makes our positioning quite unique on the market.
So full solution. Wonderful. Today we will speak about how electrification enables productivity and sustainability transformation for our customers. You that joined the CMD in June, you have seen this slide before. Just briefly, Erik, would you like to take the highlights? Why does electrification drive the productivity and sustainability transformation?
First of all, it's about protecting people from toxic gases, from the heat, and from the noise of diesel engines, and as it's something I experienced myself when working in the mines. But it also, electrification offers higher productivity. We can with electric machines have higher productivity than our diesel machines. Also, it's eliminating the CO2 emissions. There's eliminating them locally where the machine is, but also reducing even if there is a carbon-based grid.
Mm-hmm.
We can also see there is big energy savings, not only on the machines, but also on the ventilation from our customers. And in underground mine, ventilation is normally the single biggest energy consumer. That is where you really see the benefits. And you can also see, when you can reduce it, you can also see savings in ventilation, but not only in OpEx, but also on CapEx investments of all that. So that's really beneficial for our customers.
Mm-hmm.
It lowers the maintenance costs.
Mm.
We can see up to 30% less maintenance or cost in parts for a battery machine than a electric machine... versus electric machine. And then, of course, zero emissions-
Mm
... means we are complying to present and future emission standards.
Mm.
That is super important, of course, going forward.
Very well.
Mm.
And for you online, we will show you proof points on all these points, during this call today. So but just briefly, you mentioned performance, and as I understand, performance is really the key here. Here we have the Minetruck 42. What, what do you, what do you see on this picture? Jérôme, can you help us?
Yeah. So I really like that, that picture, which really says a lot around the battery performance, the battery electric vehicle performance compared to diesel. And basically, the kind of key takeaway is that we can get up to 10% higher productivity with a battery electric vehicle compared to diesel. That we have up to 80% less energy consumption-
Mm
... which is an important factor, and 70% less in heat generation in the mine.
Mm.
That is an important factor for basically the operators, the workers in the mine, because heat means less comfort and less productivity for them.
Mm-hmm.
That's really an important factor that really BEV are addressing.
Mm-hmm.
I would say that the last point, as Erik was mentioning before, around maintenance cost-
Mm
... so that's definitely bring up to 30%, maintenance cost improvement-
Mm
... mainly due to the fact that diesel engine represent the biggest chunk of maintenance cost of a machine, and we basically get rid of that maintenance cost.
Oh, very good. So, electrification, some people say it's the future. We say we've done it quite a while. And, Erik, since we collaborated on this picture, I had some new input from our president in, on the surface.
Mm.
José actually told me that through our acquisitions of Ingersoll Rand in 2004, it was proven that they had drilling with electric engines since the 1950s and '60s already. So it seems like we, we have quite a few decades of history here. But would you mind going through highlights in the electrification history of Epiroc, please?
Yeah. So it's nothing new, as you say, and electrification has really sprung off energy efficiency drives, and I will come to that. But in... I will jump into where we underground saw the need from electrification. It was really all- it's always been like the holy grail for underground, that you can have zero-emission machines.
Mm.
Electrification is what enables that. The first battery loaders were actually developed in the 1980s, but with lead-acid acid battery technology at the time. Although-
In the 1980s already?
In the '80s, yes. But the challenge with that is that you didn't have enough runtime. The machine was very powerful, but it took a very long time to recharge the battery, and it was not running for that long with that type-
Mm
... of technology. And working forward, we saw that in the, like, 2010 and so on, that the battery technology was so rapidly developing that this would enable us to go to the battery vehicles. And in through 2012, we started the development project for the first generation of battery loaders-
Mm
... that led us up till a launch of the... We were the first major OEM to launch serial-produced battery machines, produced in Sweden. And we did that in 2016. But basically, at the same time, we saw the need to change... Well, basically, now it's proven that it will work, so how do we change everything? So we started a major redesign work and a development of the technology platform that we stand on today, which was launched then in 2018.
Mm.
The cooperation, strategic operations we saw have, based on, as a base for this today.
So this is what we call the new generation. From 2018 and onwards, this is what we do now. This is our generation of batteries.
Yeah, that is correct.
Mm-hmm.
And then, in 2020, we started delivering machines based on this new technology platform. But we also saw the need for innovation in other areas than just technology, and that's when we launched, actually, in 2018-
Mm
... but we delivered the first machines also with the Batteries as a Service business model.
Mm.
So that was a quite, quite big step, I think, for the circularity thinking of everything here.
Mm-hmm.
Then, sorry. We, in 2001, we also launched,
21, mm-hmm
infrastructure products with chargers and completing the offering, not only for the machine, but growing towards the infrastructure side. And we have done the acquisitions where we grow our infrastructure with companies such as Meglab and JTMEC.
Why did we do that? Why did we go for infrastructure?
Well, it's not you cannot see this as a battery electrification just as one thing for the machine. It's an ecosystem to make everything work. So, you cannot charge a battery machine without a charger-
Mm
... and that charger has to be powered by a grid, and that grid has to design for the new loads that were not existing before.
Mm-hmm.
That's why we really see the need for looking at it from a holistic point of view.
Okay, so now we can help customers, customers with all of that.
Mm.
Looking now, 2023, how far have we come?
Almost, well, a lot of our machines already today are designed with battery electric. But the target is that we should have a full electric offering by 2025.
Mm
... for underground.
Mm.
That is a very ambitious and nice target to achieve there.
Mm. Wonderful.
By 2020-by 2030, we'll have the full, the full fleet, which will have an electric version available.
Mm.
2025 for underground, but 2030 for the entire portfolio.
Mm.
Wonderful. That's good. As we have customers with a lot of CO2 reduction carbon goals or targets, very ambitious ones, it's good to have a fleet that can support that, definitely.
Exactly.
So, time to run into the next point in our agenda. We will speak about our solution more in depth. And, you saw a video, three minutes long, when you started this call, and it briefly covers what we do, basically, but we have a complete electrification offering. Why is it so important? And you also mentioned this is your favorite, Jérôme.
Yeah.
Why is this so important?
Yeah, I'm really passionate-
What do we do?
... about that. Absolutely. So I would say that basically our... important to mention that our groundbreaking electrification equipment are really built, designed from the ground up, really with the mindset of customer value, driving more customer value. So that's really how we have been designing our solution-
Mm
... with customer value in mind. I would say that, as Erik mentioned, electrification is not just about supplying BEV equipment, battery electric vehicle, to customer.
Mm.
This is really looking at this entire ecosystem. We have learned that basically by having complete offering, so from equipment to infrastructure to conversion and battery as a service, really we help our customer driving their productivity agenda-
Mm
... and getting more efficient in their operation.
That is wonderful. And what do we say here? I mean, since we have Batteries as a Service and with a Service, we can speak about that a bit more later. Conversions, I think we're rather unique in providing-
Correct
... in the market. Second life applications, what is that?
Yeah, so basically, we can, as soon as we judge that the batteries are not efficient or have basically given their most efficiency to customer, we take it and use them for energy storage in the mine. So second life application that really extend the life of the batteries. And basically, once the batteries are completely charged down, we are recycling them, and we'll see that later on. And-
Mm
... the benefit of our solution, which is scalable, is that we have also some partners, some customers, that basically are using our very safe and stringent batteries for their own applications. So that's the OEM business that we can see here at the bottom of the slide.
Very good. This slide was almost the same as we had in at the CMD, but a bit extended. So basically, the battery electric solutions that we provide, they are safe, they are productive, they are connected, and we have enabling services to make customers take the step and have a successful step in integrating battery electric vehicles in their mines. So we're gonna go in and start with the first one here. We're going to the safety. Could you please tell us a bit more about the state-of-the-art battery safety that we claim that we have?
Yeah, we, when we looked at a new battery system and a new platform to base everything on, we looked at how do we make this and what is available on the market. And the safety concerns we have, being underground, is totally different from many other markets, and we could not find something that was, you know, high enough energy density, safe enough, and reliable for our type of application. So we decided to develop our own, and we have designed it together with our partners, Northvolt, but also with academia, and it designed it to what we call the safety onion.
Mm.
An onion has many layers, and there are safety layers in this.
Mm-hmm.
If you peel off one or you lose one, there's always something else underneath.
Mm.
That goes all the way from the cell and the cell chemistry until what we have in the pack as a robust structure-
Mm
... designed for our application specifically. And, the proof point here is, so far, up till date, we have had zero incidents and zero accidents with our system, and that, we're very proud of that because it really shows that we've done our homework and...
Mm
... have a safe system.
And why... A naive question, but why is it so dangerous with a fire underground?
... Well, you are basically inside, and it's very difficult to have an escape or run away. So fires underground are super problematic, and a lot also because of the smoke.
Mm-hmm.
Batteries are problematic. Well, many things that contain energy.
Mm-hmm.
There is always a risk with stored energy that there can be something happening. And the worst-case scenario here is a fire.
Mm
... of a battery. And then, we have designed, though, our system to cater for, to contain the worst-case scenario, which would be a thermal runaway on cell level. So-
Can you explain what a thermal runaway is?
Yeah, a thermal runaway is when, for some reason, a battery cell overheats, and it could be a, you know, a crash scenario, overcharge, or overload, a short circuit, et cetera.
Mm-hmm.
In all of these cases, the worst thing that can happen is that the cell goes past a point of no return, where separator melts, you have internal short circuit, and you create a fire. That fire can then spread throughout the pack, and that is the most catastrophic scenario that could happen.
Mm-hmm.
The design we have built in is that we can take the most catastrophic scenario, but it out without spreading to the neighboring cells.
Mm-hmm.
So meaning that you have just one very small cell,
Yeah
... going off instead of a whole pack.
Mm.
That is the big difference, the difference between having a, you know, a faulty pack or a very bad day.
So coming back to me, we have done our homework. We will actually show you a short video of a thermal runaway. We show it also on the CMD, but I think most people didn't actually think about what they saw. But look closely now. It's a short video, but you will see what happens in one of our batteries when a cell goes bananas and, and does a thermal runaway. Please start the movie. So time for a deep dive in our battery system. This is a demo sub-pack, a sub-pack of a battery. Jérôme, can you please tell us something?
Yes, sure. So that's a sub-pack, which I would say is a building block of our battery system, which is made of, NMC cells. So basically, Erik showed us, an NMC cell, which is built into, modules, and we have 8 modules into, this, sub-pack.
Mm-hmm.
So we are using that sub-pack into the battery system that we have here, this beautiful battery pack here, which has been designed with a platform approach and with modularity in mind, meaning that this building block is put in two, three, or four, five, six different modules, so that we can... We have a scalable solution for our customers. So this is here a battery pack for an ST14. So a loader made of four different packs, and then basically close to Erik, we have the DC-DC inverter and the electronic board. And usually we have on top of it the thermal management system-
Mm
... which we'll see that later on, which brings also a lot of critical, let's say, feature for the longevity of our solution. Maybe something else that is important to mention is that we have a lot of scalability, meaning that for whatever reason, if one of those battery pack is basically not working, we can still operate based on 3, 3 packs in that specific example. So that's really a feature that enable to bring a machine out of, let's say, the operation, doing whatever required.
Mm-hmm. This is from a Scooptram 14 loader, we said?
Correct.
That carries 14 tons.
Yes.
The largest loader that we have in battery electric version, that's the ST-
ST 18
... 18. It carries-
We have, yes, 6 batteries.
How many?
Six batteries.
It's 6 batteries in this one.
Yeah.
The largest truck that we have in battery electric version today is?
Today we have the MT42, and we have five battery pack, five sub-pack into the MT42 battery pack.
Mm-hmm. And that carries 42 tons load. So it's just important for you on the online as well, that the bigger the truck, the harder it is to make it in a better version than diesel, given the size, but we're working on it.
Mm.
So the Minetruck MT65, the largest one we have, a very successful truck. When do we have that one in battery-electric version?
Yeah, we are currently working on it, designing it. But really what is important is that we definitely want to deliver value to our customers.
Mm.
So, we will release that in the next coming months, but once we are basically feeling confident that this will bring a lot of value to customers. So we are working actively on that. That's our first next priority, I would say, in terms of product launch.
Our viewers now, they see a slide with the cells and the sub-packs and the battery packs. I've been struggling to get the math going there. Starting with this cell and trying to calculate here, how does it work, Erik?
Yeah, it starts with a cell, but you take this in clusters, and you build them up in series, and that builds the voltage and the energy you need. You build them up here in the sub-packs, and it's 5,376 cells per sub-pack. And the bigger packs we have, the biggest packs we have, is 43,000 cells, roughly, of this.
Mm.
And that makes the batteries powerful enough to drive some of the world's biggest underground equipment.
It's usable energy when we speak about the volt?
When we talk about the energy, we only talk about usable energy. It doesn't matter if, you know, the nameplate, what it says-
Mm
... it's what's usable, that is interesting here. So yeah.
Very good.
Mm.
We were mentioning, I think, briefly, the NMC. Let's discuss that solution a bit more. High-performing chemistry. We use nickel manganese cobalt oxide batteries.
That is correct.
Yes. For us that are, you know, in the financial world, can you, can you tell us what, what does this mean?
Yeah.
Put it in a context.
So there is many different battery chemistries, and they are rapidly evolving also, you could say. But depending on how you mix chemistry, you will have different energy content and different characteristics. And if you look at the automotive industry, you can kind of see what's happening there, where you have a performance segment with very long range that's focusing on high nickel battery batteries.
Mm-hmm.
And then you have more of an entry-level segment, or shorter range for the price-sensitive segment, and there you see LFP developing. Now, Epiroc has always been focused on the highest productivity and most performance, et cetera, and there is no different when we look at the battery system. So we are using a high nickel battery, which means that we will have the highest energy density in the industry. Now-
That brings us to the next-
Yeah, and-
- next page
... having said that, I mean, it's, it's probably so that it could be room for different segments here also, but this is our stand.
Mm-hmm.
Why it's quite clear when you see this picture, if you compare our battery from the ST18, our 18-ton loader here in this case, we have 450 usable kWh in that battery when the battery is new. But as the battery degrades, you will also... It kind of shrinks on the capacity, and at what we consider end of life, the battery is down to 380 kWh, which is, you know, like-
That's 80% of -
80% of new capacity, and that's where we have a commitment to change that with batteries as a Service.
If a customer buys a ST18 here-
Mm-hmm
... and they have battery as a service, we would replace that battery when it's down to 80%?
That is correct. That is our commitment to our customers, that they should always have batteries that is containing enough energy for them to perform the work they need to stay productive and have a good alternative to diesel machines. Now, if we would build the same battery or the same machine with LFP chemistry, like, then our energy capacity of that machine would be around 300 kWh, which we could see also in the industry is where they end up. And it, that's the difference, you know, in performance and high energy-
Mm
... lots, long run time, even at the end of life or, you know, less, but also... Yeah.
Very good.
Mm-hmm.
We did see the pack here, and I think-
Yeah
... we can actually take a bit more look at the details here.
Mm-hmm.
We have a lot of highlights on this slide.
Absolutely.
Too many to cover every one of them in this little forum at least. Jérôme, can you take us through the highlights, please?
Sure. So let's look at the battery pack here. So basically we have here this standard CCS2 interface, so which we—the value for customers is that we can share the same chargers between the battery and the other electric equipment in the mine. And that give us also the opportunity of actually an opportunity charging, because we can actually charge the battery even when the battery is mounted on the vehicle. So that's really something that gives the ability to our customer to do an opportunity charging, as we say, when they are in operation, during a break, or whatever.
We are unique, and you can, you know, swap it, or you can do on-board charging.
Absolutely
... basically.
That's exactly it.
Okay.
And then we have here, that section is around on-board telematics, so which is basically we have the antenna here and everything, the kind of intelligence is behind that space. And basically we have a wireless diagnostic capability here. And if there is any issue or if we want to troubleshoot or look at the information in the mine, so we can definitely plug a laptop here and get the very same information directly from the battery pack.
Mm.
The benefit as well is that it is basically integrated with other Epiroc solutions, such as Mobilaris, for example.
Mm-hmm.
So we can connect the information of the battery pack through through Mobilaris. And then the last point is the thermal management system, so which is coming on top of the battery pack-
Mm
... usually here, and basically there is no need for external cooling. So the thermal management is done on the battery and not outside of the battery, which is a key feature for battery life and also for performance of the battery, and we will go into a bit more details later on in the presentation.
If the customer doesn't have connectivity, how does it, this box work then? Can you connect to it somehow, or?
Yeah, they can connect through the port here-
Yes
... and get every-
Get everything that they need.
... everything available from, directly from the battery pack.
Great. Well, moving on. A lot of slides to cover today. Before we go to the slides, sorry, who are producing these boxes?
Yeah. So actually we partner with Northvolt. We get the battery, sorry, the sub-pack from Northvolt, and then we make the integration-
Mm
... together with the thermal management system and the rest in our factory in Örebro, Sweden.
Okay, so these boxes, the yellow ones we see here, we do them, but the gray sub-packs we saw, that's Northvolt-
That's correct, yes.
... basically.
Yeah.
Okay, and who owns the IP?
So we own the IP of the battery pack, and basically Northvolt own the IP of the sub-pack, the module, and the cell.
... Ah, okay. And, there, there's been a few questions in the financial markets in regards to deliveries.
Mm-hmm.
Do we have problems getting deliveries from Northvolt?
No, we absolutely have no problem with that. We have secured, really, the supply chain, worked a long time with them, for a long time with them to secure that production.
Mm-hmm.
That's really something that is working extremely well, today.
Yeah, someone told me we were their first customers. Is that right, Erik?
That is correct.
Yes.
We started talking to Peter Carlsson and that team when there were five people in the company, and was not even called Northvolt. But we could see the need to have a partner that is, is gonna give us the ability to really scale and benefit also from the automotive industry driving the development. So that is a, that is a strategic choice there for partnership. And yes, we have, we were Northvolt's first customer, and we paid their invoice serial number 00001.
Yes.
So that is, yeah.
Wonderful.
There's a long legacy and a long partnership together.
A strong partnership.
Mm.
So strong that actually Northvolt made a little video for us to show now. Thank you.
The challenges for underground mining battery electrification are numerous. We have heavy machines with a heavy payload, with a high degree of utilization, consuming massive amount of energy.
Partnering with Epiroc was a, I think, a very value-driven, decision. From Northvolt system point of view, we were looking at, how can we bring the best solution for electrification in the industry?
We have done a value chain analysis of our CO2 emission, and we can see that the vast majority are happening when our products are being used. So if we want to have an impact on the world, this is really where we need to focus our efforts, and this is where our collaboration with Northvolt and the batteries are coming in.
It was a very natural same purpose driven start of a partnership to see how we can develop some customized solution for mining equipment.
We've learned a lot over this 4-year journey. First of all, we've been able to validate our energy consumption models. Second, we've had a lot of very positive feedback from the operators, appreciating the improved environment, but also the added productivity and the raw power of these electric vehicles.
Our first delivery was for Kittilä field trial, where we delivered our first prototypes. That followed our D launch, where we delivered 3 battery packs. In this generation, we also developed our own Northvolt battery management system. This was a big milestone, and it was followed by extensive testing, where we met CE marking and UL compliance assessment.
Our collaboration started with an EU-financed project called SIMS, where we together developed three different machines. Since then, we've added more applications, so both for underground equipment but also for surface drill rigs, other OEMs, and conversion kits. We are all built on the same battery platform developed by Northvolt, but then customized for each equipment.
Northvolt will expand to new machines. For example, we have the six Voltpack Core application on the new Epiroc ST18 machine this year. Also, we're going to be continually improving the connected battery solution and battery diagnostics, including state of health, in order to ensure the performance and robustness of the batteries over the lifespan.
The challenges with these large and powerful machines is that they have to withstand harsh conditions in the mines from shocks, vibrations, dirt, and humidity. Besides this, they also have very high demands on safety, reliability, high power output, and energy capacity. To meet these demands, we rely a lot on the battery management system, and we also have our connected battery solution to monitor the state of the battery systems, to provide remote diagnostics, and to enable preventive maintenance.
I would say it's gonna be a continuation of our us partnering together to work towards full electrification and decarbonization of the mining industry.
Welcome back. Jérôme, you highlighted some strengths here with the battery pack, one of them being the onboard telematics solutions, connected batteries. Erik, could you please make a deep dive in that?
Yeah. Data is so important for the future, and we have remote monitoring diagnostics on all battery packs, and this is always connected everywhere, as long as the customer can supply connectivity, but that is through Wi-Fi or cellular network.
Mm.
And we have the majority of our battery packs, they are connected live, so we can go in and see them and see how we document every amp hour of them, every second of their life, so we have a full insight of how they're being used. And on the graphs here, you can see just a snapshot of some of the data we are monitoring. And this gives us the opportunity to optimize the battery and how the customers are using it, and we can actually go in and tweak parameters to give them either the optimum performance or the optimum life, depending on how we see they're being used.
Mm.
This gives us the opportunity to have data-driven development.
Mm.
So the data we get now from our machines is fed into our data lake, and that is used then for also shared with Northvolt for them to understand how we use our batteries. So they will be developing even better cells for us in the future. So this is a feedback, a positive feedback loop created by through data. And it also enables us to monitor our fleet of battery batteries under Batteries as a Service, and how we invoice and charge our customers for their that usage.
Are we unique in connectivity like this?
I would say all OEMs should have some kind of connectivity solution. But, as far as I know, I think, I don't know. I wouldn't say we are unique, but we have a very advanced system, for sure.
Okay. Very good.
Which is also highly valued by customers.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
I was visiting customers in South Africa two weeks ago, and they are very positive about getting access to this.
To the data.
... information.
Mm.
Yes.
Good. Another thing is the thermal management, which was a highlight. Can you explain what is this?
Yeah, so temperature control is one of the key paramount topic in the battery pack.
Mm.
Because we are speaking about kind of living of chemistry.
Mm.
I'm not a chemist, but,
Mm
... there are a lot of things happening, through this chemistry. So in low temperature, basically, obviously, you have low performance, but you have also a lithium plating and risk of dendrite, which can really damage the battery.
Mm.
When we are speaking with high temperature, too high temperature, a breakdown of the electrolyte, but also an aging, a high, kind of accelerated aging of the battery system. So having the control on the temperature is critical to control the aging of the battery-
Mm
... and therefore to control the lifetime, and therefore the cost of the solution over time.
That is, it's important, and this is, it doesn't matter what kind of battery chemistry you have or so on.
Mm.
This is generik for all lithium batteries, so... or actually all batteries. But if you want the longest life and optimum performance, you need to have control over the temperature.
We do the Goldilocks approach here.
We always try to-
Not too low, not too high. It should just be right.
Yeah, in the Goldilocks zone-
Yes
... to have optimum performance and life.
Wonderful. Another thing was the, the charging solutions. I, I think we should go to the charger, right?
Yeah.
Let's see here. It is 26%, 25 minutes. Jérôme, would you like to take this pitch?
Yes. Actually, so actually, we can see here the charging post, which basically is... So we can actually open it. That's a kind of standard charging interface.
Mm-hmm.
That's a CCS2 version that we plug on the battery pack when it is basically swapped, or directly, as we said before, as an opportunity charging. We have a lot of basically information that we see on the screen, so basically the state of charge, the charging time, how many kilowatt hours have we charged. So that is available for the operators on the charging post. But also that is, there is a wireless device inside the charging post that enable really to move to a to transfer the data to the control room-
Mm
... so that the control room knows basically the state of charge and so on. Another important element as well to mention is that we can basically charge or distribute dynamically the power, meaning that we have a power station-
Mm
... a power cabinet that can be at one place in the mine, and we can connect up to eight charging stations to this power cabinet.
Mm.
We can basically bring that close to operation. We have a very flexible solution when it relates to charging. We can really deploy that, in a way, closer to the operation. That flexibility is really a key asset of our solution.
So we sell these ones, too, the charging posts?
Absolutely. Yeah.
How much would a customer pay for one of these?
So, we spoke with Erik at the beginning.
Yeah, a charger, if you look at the, a charging post-
Mm
... and a power cabinet matching the machine, ST14 here, it would be about 15% of the value of the machine. So yeah, it's another revenue stream for Epiroc.
It's basically an enabling solution-
It is an enabler.
... rather than—
And the infrastructure has to be there, so-
Mm
... that is, but, as Jérôme said, space in a mine is a premium. Therefore, we have the power cabinet, which is not here, but it's a bigger box, and then we have the smaller charging post. And when you place this, then you can place them close, in tight, in a tight mining tunnel, and you can have it very close to the machine.
Mm.
So you don't have to have the space requiring electric, power electronics-
Mm
... for it, very close.
We have just one cable, which is important, because other-
Mm
... solutions available on the market require cooling system plugged, so different-
Mm
... connections to the machine.
Mm.
Here, we have just that cable-
Mm
... so which really make,
Yeah
... seamless operations.
Yeah, I think even I could manage this one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Even my children, because it's the same plug on my electric car.
Oh, it's the same on your car?
Yeah.
Okay, wonderful. So moving back here, then, I think I was a bit eager here, skipping one slide before.
Mm.
So if we just briefly mention here, what does this smart solution mean?
Yeah, it's. I mean, the infrastructure behind the electric machines is just as important as the machine itself.
Mm.
And that is, it's really there to enable a round-the-clock operation. Now, the universal charging, the CCS plug is a standardized plug that is used on a global standard.
Mm.
That allows us also to have opportunity charging while we have the battery on the machine, or we can swap the battery and charge it off-board, like it would be standing here-
Mm
... by plugging it into the same port-
Mm
... and charge the battery that way.
... How many batteries do you need for a machine?
You need one.
Yeah.
But, it depends then. Some customers would have to have a very high utilization, and then they can have two batteries and swap the batteries, so they don't need to wait for a charge.
Mm.
But what we can see is, with our high-energy density batteries, most customers is not actually swapping, so they are plugging in and charging during lunch breaks or during shift changes, and that is enough to run a 24-hour operation by utilizing these natural occurring stops, like lunch breaks, shift changes.
Wonderful.
Yeah.
I think we move on, speaking about the topic here of... You said your son could also charge your car with the same-
Yeah
... cable. Epiroc was actually one of the first members in CharIN, which is a global association with over 330 members that wants to have an OEM-agnostic approach in electrification. And I think this is critical, not only for electrification, but also automation, actually. Customers do have a mixed fleet of machines out there. So looking here, we have Epiroc, Caterpillar, Komatsu, all of us are actually going for OEM-agnostic.
Mm.
The customers, BHP, Rio Tinto, Roy Hill, are examples as well.
Mm.
The power suppliers and the utility vehicle suppliers are also in favor for having a-
Mm
... OEM-agnostic approach.
Mm.
I think it's good we're having that.
Mm.
Any comments on that?
No, I think this is the way where we have to go for the best of the industry, where we, we cannot have a mess of different charging standards. It has to be standardized.
Mm.
I think even when the customers goes into the standardization organizations, then I think we really have a clear way forward.
Yeah, no, yeah, then we have to go-
Yeah. There are a few stubborn ones that, that is, not having the same approach, but, we, we will see.
Yeah. One important aspect also to mention is that we are heavily involved into the working groups-
Mm
... and especially the mining one-
Mm
... where we have team contributing to white papers, on charging, so that's definitely an important association for us.
Mm.
So we are really collaborating with those players to really
Yeah, thought leader you mentioned before.
Exactly. Yeah.
So yeah, we're working on that. Battery as a service. I have actually learned more during this process in making this call. Erik, would you please or Jérôme, maybe, please tell me-
Yeah, we can-
... what, what is the offering here?
Yes, so, so battery as a service is really something the, which is, highly regarded by our customer, and that's really perceived as a kind of, a productivity driver in a way for them. So, basically, the benefit for them is to have a safe and certified battery.
Mm.
Also to move from a pure CapEx to an OpEx model.
Mm-hmm.
Nowadays, with the cost of capital, that's also important and interesting and attractive for our customers.
Mm-hmm.
Also, they pay according to the battery plan, so they have a good control on basically the cost of the, let's say, the battery solution-
Mm
... over time. So that, that's good for them in terms of planning. On the other side, we take full responsibility, when it relates to capacity, technical performance.
Mm-hmm.
We went through basically those different parameters that we can get access to. We drive also technical upgrades, so when there is an upgrade, being a software-
Mm-hmm
... improving the performance, improving the productivity, we are taking that responsibility. And also, basically, we are managing the recycling at the end of life.
Mm
... or the second life. So that's really a kind of seamless solution-
Mm
... for our customers. Basically, that help them really driving their productivity, agenda.
Mm.
Mm. Very good. Then you mentioned the charging here. We have made acquisitions, JTMEC and Meglab, and it's been a bit unclear, for me at least-
Mm
... what are we trying to create here? From where are we going, to where are we going, and where are we now? So, so we tried to make this slide here to kind of illustrate where we're from and where we're going.
Mm.
Who would like to take this one?
Yeah, I can take the pictures there and try to explain a little bit what's... So, on the left picture, you see a mine, customers, and yellow products. That's our- that was where we used to be. We were offering ventilation machines, et cetera, but, they were quite... They were not really part of the infrastructure. They were depending on the infrastructure, but not so much a part of it. But as we see now when we go into battery electrification, the battery machines put another strain on the electrical grid, and it's really understanding where that load will come and how important the electrical infrastructure is behind it.
Mm.
And charge is a part of that infrastructure, and it's just an extension of that grid. And the green lines are representing then the grid where it's becoming a part of the total ecosystem-
Mm
... and, where everything play a part there. And in the slide most to the right, or the picture on the right, right, it shows where we believe the future is.
Mm.
It's yellow machines with yellow batteries, but it's also orange machines with yellow batteries, such as-
Mm
... Jama was one-
Mm
... OEM example there-
Mm
... where we have open interfaces and work towards enabling electrification for our customers-
Mm
... also through other OEMs. There is batteries, not only on the machines, but also supporting the grids and for other loads-
Mm
... to strengthen that. And we can also see how renewable energy is gonna come in and play a role for our customers, and through our acquisitions, this is something that we can also enable.
... Yeah, and I would say that, to add to what Erik was mentioning, the dynamic and the engagement with our customers is changing. In the past, it was purely transactional-
Mm.
So really based on price and, in a way, return on investment.
Mm.
Today, we are more speaking with total cost of ownership with them.
Mm.
Tomorrow it will be more a kind of outcome-based discussion, because we'll be leveraging that end-to-end solution.
Mm.
Basically we'll be moving from supplier yesterday.
Mm
... as a supplier, to today, a business partner, and tomorrow, more a consultant and trusted advisor. Because we'll give them advice on basically-
Mm
... improvement in terms of managing the energy flow within the mine.
Mm.
That's really where our acquisition, JTMEC and Meglab, drives a lot of value and complements the battery electric vehicle offering that we do have.
So, so far I would say we have the best equipment, we hold their hands, we have the full offering, customers will have... This will work. That they will, they will have a electric-
Mm
... electric mine working. Wonderful. We're gonna do a little short movie here, scaling up electrification underground. What have we learned?
Transitioning your mine into a battery electrification operation comes with many possibilities, but also many things to consider. At Epiroc, we have vast experience within the electrification field, and we've done extensive testing and evaluation to find the most optimal technology. This means Epiroc's electrification offering can support you both short and long term as your operation keeps expanding. One challenge when scaling up the use of battery electric vehicles is the space required for swapping and storing batteries. A self-swapping system relies on batteries being placed next to each other for accessibility reasons. It also requires prepared flat ground conditions, as well as manual involvement when connecting a battery to a charger. This might work for a few machines, but quickly becomes expensive and impractical as your fleet grows. With Epiroc's solution, it's easy to store, scale, and move your batteries.
We provide certified lifting tools designed with safety in mind, which allows batteries to be placed for maximum space efficiency. Our system also supports onboard charging for maximum flexibility. Charging is another challenge. In our studies, we found that ultra-fast charging has high impact on the electrical grid. The batteries in use have lower energy density, and therefore needs to be charged more frequently, which reduces machine uptime, and also requires extensive planning for a large fleet. Our conclusion is that this solution is not feasible to scale. With Epiroc, you get high-energy-density batteries with longer autonomy and reduced need of charging. That means improved machine utilization and less time spent on planning. Our industry-leading battery system has been developed with safety and modularity in mind.
Individual parts of the battery can be monitored and controlled separately, protected by a built-in multi-layered safety system, including an onboard thermal management system for optimal cell temperature at all times. Our smart chargers with standardized interface lets you power your entire fleet of Epiroc and non-Epiroc machines. In order for you to scale up seamlessly, we will soon complement our chargers with load-leveling functionality through ESS, energy storage system, and faster charging for batteries with even higher energy density. We are leading the charge towards sustainability in mining by offering a complete electrification solution, from battery technology and electrical vehicles to conversions, infrastructure, and much more. By partnering with Epiroc, your operation constantly evolves with our latest innovations. That's how we make mining more sustainable and smarter, guided by our sustainability targets for 2030, and our dedication to surpass our customers' expectations.
Welcome back again. Thank you also for good questions. We took a sneak view here during the break. Now we're up for the interesting part, the proof points. How is electrification enabling productivity and sustainability transformation? We will start with protecting people from gases, noise, and heat. First one out is protecting from noise.
Yes.
Jérôme, please, what do we see?
So this comes really from one of our customers, which have been measuring noise before and after. So we're comparing basically a diesel vehicle with a battery electric vehicle. I would say that when we make this comparison, that's good to have a reference point. So when basically an operator inside the cabin is in a diesel vehicle, that's equivalent to 80 decibel, which is, I would say, the noise that we have inside an aircraft cabin.
Mm-hmm.
Moving to electric vehicle, basically we are lowering down to 60 decibels, which is basically the noise level when we are speaking together.
Mm.
Definitely, the perception is definitely lower, so we speak about 50%.
Mm.
There is a fun fact, actually. One of the customers, when they moved from diesel to battery, they started hearing noise that they never heard before. Namely hydraulics, equipment.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
They thought there was a defect on the equipment because it was the first time they heard that. In the past, it was covered by diesel engine.
Mm.
So they called us, and we basically looked at that and told them that it's new, a kind of new noise that they-
Mm
... they are hearing. But that's very important-
Mm
... for basically worker's health-
Mm
... but also for productivity, because at the end of the day, that really help workers to be much more, let's say, engaged into their work.
Wonderful. Another thing is heat. Moving on to Erik, why is heat a problem? In this mine right now, it's rather chilly, I can tell you.
Yeah.
Mm.
It's not, but we're in Sweden, and we're not that deep.
Okay.
The deeper you go, the hotter it gets.
Mm-hmm.
That is a problem all around the world, because the mines around the world is going deeper. As in a rule of thumb average, about 30 meters per year. That is a problem because the temperature in the mine, as you go deeper, the temperature increases with about 1 degree per 100 meter.
Mm-hmm.
So if you are at 1,000 meters and you take air from the surface, or if you are 1,000 meters, and take air from the surface, you pump it down with the ventilation, the temperature increases with about 10 degrees. If you are 2,000 meters, it's 20 degrees, and then if the air at the surface is 20, then your air when it arrives there is 40. It becomes hot.
Mm.
And more ventilation is not necessarily the problem or the solution, because you're generating your heat by pumping it down. So reducing heat at the mine phase, where it's the most critical, it's very important. And battery machine reduces the heat generation with about 80% compared to diesel.
Very good. We move on to the higher productivity.
Yeah. So basically, again, this is coming from customer activity. So that's basically the cycle time, which is reducing by more than 10% using 4 MT42 and 2 ST14. So moving basically having a reduction in cycle time, cycle time, sorry, of 11%, which basically improve productivity, something like more than 15% more, let's say, tons per hour moved. So that really-
That's really-
is something that they have attested, and
That's really good.
... they value heavily.
Yeah, and then what the slide we showed earlier was basically a theoretical study.
Yes. Yeah.
But this is proof points coming from customers that they measure, and this is, this is so.
Yeah.
Maybe that's why they are giving recurring orders as well.
Yeah.
We will speak more about that later. The onboard thermal management, we spoke about that, sitting on the top of the box.
Yeah.
What's up there?
We talked about cooling and so on, but it's thermal management, it's also heating. It's so interesting that... Here's a case from a Norwegian customer. It's a contractor, actually, and they have a fleet of machines, and they're driving tunnel, and they're parking the machines outside. But this time of year in Norway, it's quite cold, and you see this quite recently, it was about -20 degrees there. We have a feature on our thermal management where you can keep the heat on, so to say. And on the top graph there, you can see the temperature of battery, and normally it's running at around 30 degrees operating temperature.
Mm.
But when they turn off a machine because you park it outside, because of the contraction, it just looks like that, the application.
Mm.
The battery cools quite quickly.
Mm.
If a battery cools down to below zero degrees, you cannot charge it, and if it cools down to very cold, very difficult to pull power out of it also. But by leaving the thermal management on, we can keep the battery hot and at operating temperature, so when the operators come back, they can immediately start operating the machine. And that is, of course, super important, because if without a thermal management on board, like we have it, and the features that we can keep the temperature on, it would not be possible to have that kind of operation. And
Are we unique in this?
We are, as far as I understand, we are unique with thermal management on board and also all these features with heating or climate control also when the machine is not used. That is, it's, of course, important because without, as Jérôme said, without control over your temperature, you have no control over your aging, and you have no or little performance, and that is, that is key.
Very good. If you read the graphs more carefully, you will really understand what we mean with this later. Moving on to the eliminating of reduction of CO2 emissions and the ventilation, and I would like to start with this one. Most of you have seen it before. In the yellow box, that's where Epiroc makes a positive difference. By replacing drill rigs, loaders, and trucks, you could potentially save 30% of your emissions. But the upside is really on the ventilation. Ventilation can represent as much as 40% of the OpEx cost in running a mine. Let's look at that math as well. Jérôme-
Yes.
What do we see here?
So what we can see here is basically the improvement in terms of heat coming from a real-life experience, I would say. Had a customer moving, so which is basically gradually moving from a full diesel fleet to a full electric one.
Mm-hmm.
They have already, they are already operating six equipment today.
Mm-hmm.
Basically, they reduced heat by 6% and also reduced the airflow in the mine. They have done the projection based on their first basically experience with our machine.
Mm.
When they will be moving to a full fleet, so 24 equipment in their mine-
Mm
... they will be basically reducing the heat by 40%. But another important factor, and you see those horizontal lines.
Mm.
Today, they have four, basically, ventilation fans which are in operation, and the day they will move to the 24 battery electric vehicles, they will be operating just three fans. So which basically will trigger, as we said before.
Mm
... operating cost improvement.
Mm.
When you project that, in a greenfield project-
Mm
... that will also have a positive impact in terms of CapEx, because they will be dimensioning, have a lower dimensioning of their ventilation systems-
Mm
... thanks to battery electric vehicles. So that's really, I would say, a customer testimony of the benefit, of-
Mm
... battery electric vehicles.
Yeah, so basically, also means if they would expand with diesel, you know, vehicles, they would have eventually had a new fan. Now they are moving to BEV and could potentially reduce the number of fans-
Yes
... that they need-
Right
... need to have.
Yeah.
... Yeah, but it's fun with these numbers. We see, okay, they're gonna reduce or they have a reduction of 6%, but it's... Or, sorry-
Should we put this one?
1, 1 back, and
No, go back.
Okay.
Okay, yep.
It's quite interesting when you put it in some perspective we better can understand. So this customer is ventilating at 565 cubic meters per second, roughly. But what is that?
Mm.
I don't know how much it is. Well, it's actually each cubic meter of air weighs about 1.22 kilos. So if you put that in a perspective, they, they ventilate about 21 million tons of air per year.
Wait, how much?
About 21 million tons.
21 million tons.
That's 10 times more weight in air than they produce in rock.
Mm.
What is their core business?
Yeah. Yeah.
No, and ventilation is so, so big part of the total CapEx of a mine that it's super important anything we can do in that. Same fans, if we would blow up a balloon-
Mm
... the size of Globen, it would take about 20 minutes. So yeah, it's a lot of air in this.
And Glo-
This, this is mining, you know?
Globen is a big, big-
Arena
... how do you say? Arena for, like, 50,000 people, I think.
Yeah.
20 minutes to cover that one? Okay. Impressive.
But it's the savings in ventilation. When we talk about savings, that customer expected that they can reduce their ventilation with, what's it? Was it 40%?
Mm.
Now, what's interesting here is that it's not a linear aspect here. The flow is linear-
Mm
... like we're saying, 46%, but if we cut the ventilation rate by 50%, we go from a relative two on the flow line to a relative one, but the power line, the yellow, reduces by a factor of eight. So it's not a lot of ventilation reduction needed to create- to generate huge saving in energy on the fans. So that's where we have the immediate impact for our customer. They just need to introduce, you know-
A few machines.
... 20% saving-
Yeah
... is 50% cost reduction on ventilation.
Really good.
Mm.
And here we have another customer that has a proof point on the energy consumption on the machine.
Yeah.
We spoke about the mine-
So-
But the machine also.
So, it's really important. We see energy costs, so you can pay for diesel, and you pay for electricity.
Mm.
When we go from diesel to electric, we have about an energy saving in kilowatt hours of about 70% when we factor in the machine and the charging, so the total-
Mm
... concept. But the cost factors are not always the same, right?
Mm.
Normally, electricity is cheaper per kilowatt hour than diesel.
Mm.
Here we could see the savings was greater in cost than it was in the-
In ventilation
... energy, energy.
Yeah.
So that is another big point here, and really interesting to understand. It's not linear, everything.
Moving on to the maintenance cost, and this one I can take. They have lower maintenance costs. So you spoke initially here about the engine maintenance, the diesel engine maintenance-
Mm
... being very, very heavy, and they don't have to do that, the customer, so they can save 15%-20%, even 30%, we said, for the Minetruck MT42.
Mm. Mm.
So that's very good, and then the ventilation savings we spoke about, of energy, and also ventilation, they come on top. So, customers also save money on maintenance. But now we would like to see how is our current status on the rollout of this electrification?
Mm.
This picture is from our Capital Markets Day presentation in June. As we said before, by 2025, the full underground fleet will be available in battery electric version. 2030, we will have emission-free alternatives on the full fleet. At end 2022, we were 39% of the fleet in battery electric vehicles. We are north of 40% right now, and you will get the number in the annual report. North of 40% is where we stand today. We speak a lot about underground, and we are an underground mine.
Mm.
I know you love underground. You've been in that business for a long time, but it's also the surface. A lot of things are happening there as well. Jérôme?
Yeah, and that's an important part, and we are definitely actively looking and working on that. I would say that it's important to emphasize, and Erik mentioned that at the beginning when we looked at the history, we have had some electrified version for quite some time.
Mm.
Our Pit Vipers and Drill Master, they have electrified version, cable electrified.
Mm
... but we, we have that already available. When we look at those different offerings here, on the left side, so we have the SmartROC T35, so which is a battery powered drill rigs-
Mm
... which can basically drill on battery for one hour. And then basically for those cable-electric version that we have, our customers can use this wagon-mounted power pack that we see in the middle.
Mm.
MTVR is nickname. That basically they can use to tram and move from one place to the other.
Mm.
Pit Viper is today mainly cable operated. We don't have... There is no technology available today to drill, basically on Pit Viper, based on battery. We are looking at different things, but the technology is not clear and mature today.
Mm
...
But cable is also electric.
Cable is also electric.
Exactly.
We should not forget that.
Exactly.
Anything that's stable or stationary, it's perfect application for.
Absolutely
... rig connect.
For, yeah, exactly. So let us show a video on the new electric-powered Pit Viper 231E.... So again, a picture you have already seen before, the strong demand for low emission alternatives from the Capital Markets Day. Then it was our Underground President, Sami, who presented this picture, and we said in 2022, the battery electric vehicles represented 3% of revenues, of the equipment revenues, and we would say it's in line for year to date 2023 as well. When we speak about revenues from drilling equipment with cable and/or with significant lower fuel consumption than others, we are 32% plus of the equipment revenues. And if we speak about the order intake for battery electric vehicles in 2023 versus 2022, it's been on a more normalized level.
We have not seen it three-folded, but we see strong demand also in 2023 for battery electric vehicles. Let's see here, we have machines in a lot of countries.
Mm.
Jérôme, this is a new picture.
Yes, exactly. And you can see here where basically the different regions or countries where we have our battery system in operation. And something important and interesting to mention is that we see an increasing adoption and use of our equipment.
Mm-hmm.
Basically, in the last, I would say 8-12 months, the utilization rate has been multiplied by 2.
Mm-hmm.
It's not just about trials-
Mm.
... it's not just about testing, it's now a full-scale deployment.
Mm.
Some customers use that now in production.
Mm
... and we see that basically the number we collect from the battery system, and that really, it's, it's ramping up substantially. So we are very happy to see that it's-
Mm
... there is a lot of traction. When customer-
Mm
... starts, they can't stop.
So-
Yes
... moving from early adopters to running full operations, and they like it.
Yeah.
Actually, we have some updates here. In June, we said we had 25 sites globally with running machines in operations globally. Now, we have 28, so it's up 3 since then. And of the recurring orders, we actually have 10 versus 9. So it seems like the customers that have ordered, it works, they like it, they use the machines-
Mm
... and they order new machines. The equipment, the batteries as a service is still roughly around 80%, and we still see solid interest for the battery conversions that we do. Another topic is the financial implications of the battery electric vehicle for Epiroc, and therefore, I have a surprise guest today. I have invited Håkan Folin, our CFO, to join us here on stage. Håkan, welcome. So-
Thank you very much.
Hello, Håkan. Hi.
Hello.
How are you?
Fine, thanks.
Good as well.
Mm-hmm.
So we get going. What are the implications of revenues for Epiroc?
Mm
... with this electrification journey?
The most important one is that we meet the demand from our customers, that they are looking for these type of solutions for the many reasons we've heard earlier during this call. Second is that these solutions offer more value for the customer, and we typically try to share this with our customers, which means that we get a higher average selling price of the machine.
Mm.
Then we also get new revenue streams. We talk about battery as a service, we talk about electrical infrastructure. Those were things we did not have a few years ago, so it's new revenue stream for us, helping and supporting our growth journey. And then finally, you know, we heard about the fantastic solutions we have, so we see an opportunity here for us to actually gain some market share.
Very good. Same question, but for the profit, how will this electrification drive profit for Epiroc?
We work very much with value-based selling, and when we create more value for our customer, better productivity, et cetera, then we want to share that value with our customers. So, so that's really number one. We also have a very modular and scalable approach, so the more we grow this, the better actually the, the overall profitability will be for Epiroc. We also get the higher service penetration rate. Actually, so far, all batteries we have sold have come with a service contract.
Mm.
As you know, we strive to really increase the aftermarket business-
Mm
... and this is another way to do this for us.
Mm-hmm.
And then finally, and I think very exciting, is the second life that we can actually use the machine. Sorry, we use the battery as long as it's suitable for that specific machine, but then we can do something else with it.
Mm.
Use it for another machine, or use it for energy storage, or whatever it might be.
Mm.
I really like this, that we try to use this as much as possible through the life cycle, and that will also generate profit for us.
Good. And, same question, what happens with the balance sheet?
Yeah, with the balance sheet, I think, first of all, it's important to mention that there's no increased CapEx for us. We produce these machines in the same facilities as where we produce the current machines-
Mm
... these machines. Then it can be some burden on the balance sheet from Batteries as a Service when we don't sell it, but we actually keep it on our own balance sheet. So far, it's not really an issue, as it's fairly small volumes. As this grows, then we might look into if we can find different solutions.
You're also responsible for sustainability. We don't say that so often, but you're also in charge of that, that reporting. So how does this impact our sustainability targets?
Yeah, we have quite aggressive sustainability targets for 2030, also approved by the SBTi initiatives. The most important one for us, where we can really make a difference, is to make sure that we reduce emissions from our machines. We have a target, we should reduce them by half by 2030.
Mm-hmm.
And these solutions are the clearest way, the clearest path for us to get to that target.
Mm-hmm.
Secondly, is that you mentioned that before, Karin, that our customer have also put the big miners. They put quite aggressive targets on their CO2 reduction.
Mm-hmm.
By offering this, we will actually also help them to reach their own CO2 emission targets.
Mm-hmm. Very good. Speaking about sustainability, now moving to you, Jérôme.
Yeah.
We have spoken about second life, we're speaking about circularity. What do we do? What do we mean?
Yeah, we are definitely heavily engaged into that kind of circular model, where we buy batteries basically produced with, let's say, green energy, from our partner, Northvolt. We use them in the equipment. We basically reuse them as second life batteries, and then basically we work with Northvolt to recycle. So we have really that kind of a loop and circular model.
Mm-hmm. Very good. And now it's time for Q&A, and I will ask you, Håkan, to bring me that magical iPad. Hopefully, you have sent some more questions. 30% less maintenance costs. You have mentioned that despite the lower maintenance, the total aftermarket opportunity on electric equipment is 12% higher. And that is correct, and we briefly touched it when you said it, so 12% at least higher revenues over five years-
Mm
... for a battery electric vehicle, and 100% of the battery electric vehicles actually come with a service contract today. For miners, in terms of priority to reach their emission targets, where does electrification of mining fleet stand versus other options, like increasing renewable sourcing? I look to you guys.
Yeah, I don't think there is any co-. So battery electric equipment enable the use of renewable energy, but then the miners are also looking to secure renewable energy to the sites, and this goes hand in hand. So, this is gonna be a journey that's gonna be done together. You cannot achieve an emission-free mine with just renewable energy if you continue to run fossil diesel to it, so-
Mm
... it's a combination.
We say there is a triptych here, really. This is first renewable energy, then electrification, but third, energy efficiency.
Mm.
It's not because we are operating a battery electric vehicle that we are not working on energy efficiency.
Mm.
And we work a lot-
Mm
... on reducing the consumption of our battery, of our, sorry, equipment in general-
Mm
... so being in drilling and in tramming, in hauling, sorry, just because that's an important factor as well.
Mm.
Those are, to me, the three pillars of sustainability in the mine.
It's so important because when we go battery electric, there is a limited amount of energy really in a battery, and the efficiency becomes so much more important than it's been before with diesel, where you had so much energy, so to say.
Mm.
Yeah, energy efficiency is super important.
I would also say that as mines go underground, the best solution would be battery electric.
Mm
... right, as well?
Mm, mm.
So.
Yeah.
2023 appears to be a quiet year in terms of large battery orders. When do you see a more meaningful and tangible development in battery equipment orders?
I can try to answer that. I would say that we see a lot of interest from our customers.
Mm.
There is not a single customer discussion almost when this is not on the table.
Mm.
Then you showed the picture before that we are getting more sites. We are getting more recurring orders, so it keeps happening all the time.
Mm.
and we definitely, I remember Sami showed at the CMD a kind of hockey stick type-
Mm
... of picture, and I think now sometimes you talk about the S curve in terms of new technology.
Mm.
We are there when there's a big interest. It's getting started. It's getting tried, and I'm certain that over the coming years, we're gonna see a very strong,
Development
... development for, orders for electric vehicles.
Mm.
Yeah, I'm sure, too, and it's kind of a breaking point now in the time towards the commitments towards 2030, because the machines you buy starting now and forward is what's gonna impact your commitments to 2030.
Mm.
So if our customer's gonna meet that, it's now we really need to start thinking about this.
Wonderful. What are the key reasons why a customer may not choose to go for battery electric solutions?
If you can, I mean, there is probably many reasons. You want to standardize your fleet. You don't have a long mine life left. You don't want to revamp your site-
Mm
... and so on. But if you have a long mine life, and you wanna... And the deeper you go, the more sense it makes, so yeah, it... There's a few things there, but it's gonna be, as towards 2030, it will be a no-brainer for basically anyone ev- anywhere in the world. If you're underground, definitely, but also, you have to consider your climate footprint as a-
Yeah
... a, anywhere.
And I would add-
Also on surface.
Sorry, Erik. I would add to that as well, that poor quality in some areas in the world is not optimal today.
Mm.
Customer needs time to invest in this infrastructure-
Mm
... and get the right quality of, let's say, electricity in a way to operate their fleet.
Mm.
We are helping them through our infrastructure offering-
Mm
... to get to that,
Mm
... that level when they will feel ready to move to electric, electric versions.
Yeah, the electrical grids are not really designed for this yet... It will also have to, and then enabling.
Good. How many years of usage could it take for the NMC battery to degrade to the 80% level? And how do you price the replacement of the battery?
So, how many years? It's not year-measured in years, it's more like how many cycles or how do you use it, and it will also depend on if you have a very heavy energy operation or low. But we will see, in simulations, we have seen that we could probably, you know, have the first batteries, you know, degrade bit beyond 80% already after two years, but we can also see applications where they will outlive the life of the machine. So,
So far, how's the battery quality? What would you say?
Yeah, so far we haven't worn out any batteries yet. That is... But it's not saying we are not without challenges.
Mm.
New technology always have challenges, but that's where we stand by our customers, always support them. The cost was another thing.
Replacement.
Depending on, yeah, for the replacement, when it came time for a replacement. When we offer batteries as a service, the replacement is included, and it's not an extra cost. That is something we have catered for before-
Mm
... in the charging of batteries as a service. With, we will replace the battery for the customer at no extra cost. That's included.
Mm.
If the customer has a battery with service, if it is within that extended warranty period, also included, and, we are then offering a return program where the customer returns their, used up or worn sub-packs-
Mm
... and we sell them new ones at a rebated price to make sure we also get the packs back and that we can recycle them responsibly.
That, that's very good.
Mm.
More than I knew, actually. When you mention full electrical range for underground by 2025, is it with fully new products built around the electric driveline, or is it all your existing range that can be retrofit? If the latter, will efficiency be really optimized?
Electrification will happen on all the products, but the products are all the products. When you electrify them, the electric driveline is optimized to be an electric driveline, but it doesn't matter what kind of chassis you kind of put it in.
Mm, mm.
The energy efficiency is, I would say, so much more dependent on how we implement this. But we design our a battery electric machines from the ground up, but we not necessarily design, redesign our buckets on the loader or the cabins on a-
Mm-hmm
... truck, because that's not part of the electrification.
So unique, and productive, and better than diesel machines-
Correct
... that we deliver to the market.
Correct.
Yes.
And it's the proof is in the, you know, when you say about energy efficiency, the proof is in the runtime, on how much can you perform on the same size battery. You know, it's, it's the last percent of energy efficiency, and 30% bigger batteries, you know, that, that's gonna be much more important-
Makes a difference.
... for the total performance of that vehicle.
I would add to what Erik is saying, that basically we adapt to our customer requirement.
Mm.
Some wants to kind of convert their existing fleet, others wants to invest in brand-new equipment, so we have that ability.
Yeah.
I would say that part of the development work we are doing is we are really emphasizing this kind of platforming approach-
Mm
... meaning that we are leveraging the same sub-components in basically a new development and in a, in a conversion kit.
Mm.
That's really something that, at the end of the day, doesn't make a lot of difference when it relates to equipment performance.
Mm.
Very good. How do you see the profitability evolve within battery-as-a-service solution in the aftermarket, which has been a high-margin business? Can you achieve similar margins with battery-as-a-service offering, with 30% drop in sale of spare and wear parts?
We haven't quantified exactly what margins we have on Battery as a Service. We are offering it since our customer want it. We talked about it before, that it became lower CapEx for them and more OpEx. The benefit for us is also that it becomes recurring revenue.
Mm.
So, what we have seen historically in our business is that the equipment business can be a bit more volatile-
Mm
... while the service business is more stable, and this is a way for us to actually turn the equipment business into service business.
Mm-hmm.
Exactly what margin we will have on that business, we have actually not commented on.
We have said we have an aggressive depreciation of the batteries, at least.
Mm.
How much does the battery-swapping infrastructure cost? How easy is it to move from one part of the mine to the next? And what do customers think about battery swapping using this method versus battery-swapping technology integrated in a machine?
Mm.
Yeah, we do both swapping and on board, yeah.
No one, no one would like to swap a battery, and no one would like to even charge it.
Mm.
But the fact is that you kind of have to. So the fact is that most of our customers not actually swapping batteries. The ones that does has either a very weak grid, so they want to really lower the load on the grid, so they slow-charge batteries, and they swap them quickly.
Mm-hmm.
Most customers are actually charging batteries on board, and utilizing that, the normal stopping times to opportunity charge. So they don't need any swapping equipment at all.
Mm.
With the development of batteries, I think, as energy capacity increases even further, I think we will see more and more customers are going that way, and we, but we will also have the segment that is, for example, Block caving or something that needs a super high utilization, and they will probably continue to swap or so on. But,
... I think, maybe, it's been a little bit overestimated how much utilization-
Mm.
that we have underestimated how much of a problem we are solving with the high-energy density batteries.
Yeah, and I would add to what Erik is saying, that basically our solution is ideal for scalable fleet.
Mm.
meaning that we have that infrastructure, and you can scale up, quite easily. We don't need that a lot of space-
Mm
... by basically replacing batteries.
Mm-hmm.
That's really something that our customers value.
Mm
... a lot. And I would say that this opportunity charging we spoke about, the charging cost that we can move-
Mm
... let's say, closer to the operation, gives also a lot of flexibility to customers.
Mm.
Very good, and the cost we covered before, you said 15% roughly of the machine-
Mm
... for the charger-
For the charger.
... and the infrastructure.
Mm.
Is that meaningful investment for a customer to do that?
I would say our chargers are much more cost-efficient than the alternatives.
Okay.
And then, yeah.
We start there, good. What's your current production capacity of load-and-haul BEV offering versus your 2022 sales level? Production capacity, capacity. I don't think it's an issue.
I don't think it's an issue, no.
No.
It's not.
We are not capacity constrained.
As we said now, we are producing them in the same facility.
Mm.
I mean, if we produce one less diesel, we can produce one more battery, basically.
Mm.
Mm.
And then we have a specific battery section-
Mm
... where we work with actual batteries-
Mm
... but not with equipment as such.
We are designed to scale, so.
We have one minute left. What Return on Capital Employed are you targeting on the Batteries as a Service business?
Well, well, I would say that we have, we have as a company, Epiroc has a solid and rather stable return on capital employed, and we don't want... I don't want to see that go down, basically.
Mm.
We don't, I wouldn't say we have a specific target for Battery as a Service, but I want to keep our return on capital employed at the high and stable level that we have demonstrated.
A final one: How is your BEV offering overall dilutive to the group EBIT today?
Yeah, what we say is that for each machine we sell, then it's basically not dilutive. But of course, as we invest quite a lot in R&D, and volumes are rather small-
Mm
... so in total, yes, it is dilutive today, but, we haven't said exactly how much.
But, per machine, profitable.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I know not all of you got your questions answered, and we will try to reach out to you. Some of them were about direct comparison, us and our competition, and I would advise everyone to ask the competition on what we offer and see what they answer. We know what we offer. They know what they offer. The good thing is that all companies here are eager to help customers in making-
Mm
... this electrification journey, and that we do it in a responsible way, making sure that customers get it done, and that it works, and that it works better than diesel, and I'm sure all OEMs out here have that agenda. Before we say thank you, I would just like to say save the dates. We have a Capital Markets Day in Las Vegas on September 24. Please add that in your calendar. I will actually show one last video for those of you that can see it. It's when electrification meets automation. Thank you very much, Erik, Jérôme, Håkan.
Thank you.
Thank you, everyone, for listening.
Thank you, Karin.
Everyone, thank you.
Thank you.
Tack så mycket.
Unstoppable, that's what we become when we work together and combine our knowledge. But what if the same is true for two different technologies? As mines are getting deeper, underground operations are facing rising challenges when it comes to workplace safety, machine utilization, and attracting skilled employees. The Scooptram ST14 SG changes the game by fusing zero-emission technology with advanced automation capabilities in the 14-ton loader segment.
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