Epiroc’s revolutionary Ventilation on Demand technology is a game-changer in the mining industry. It significantly reduces energy consumption at the Borden gold mine in Canada by providing clean air precisely when needed.
Ventilation is a vital service in underground mining. Digging far into the Earth’s entrails, underground miners often encounter stale air or toxic gases that make life uncomfortable or impossible. With the mechanization of mining in the last century, they have also faced potentially lethal fumes from their machines and vehicles.
A hundred years ago, coal miners took canaries underground to protect themselves from bad air. When the bird stopped singing – overcome by poisonous gases – the miners knew it was time to get out. Thankfully, those days are long gone.
Modern underground mines are equipped with massive ventilation systems to ensure staff have a constant supply of clean air even when working hundreds of meters below the surface. However, keeping the air flowing through a series of giant fans on the surface and each level is highly energy intensive. The ventilation system is often the operation’s biggest electricity consumer.
As mining companies strive to cut costs to remain efficient and lower energy consumption to reduce their environmental footprint, any measure that can help to reduce that bill is welcome.
At its Borden mine in western Ontario, mining company Newmont has implemented a new automated Ventilation on Demand system – provided by Epiroc, through acquired company Meglab’s Imagine solution – which automatically adjusts the ventilation system’s operation as required.
“Historically, regardless of whether you have one truck or five trucks, you’re always pumping the maximum air underground, but it doesn’t have to be that way,” explains Mario Lachance, the Mine Superintendent at Borden mine, which has very high sustainability goals.
With Ventilation on Demand, air is pumped only to those areas as required in the volumes needed for the number of people and machines working there.
“If we are only working on the west sill, the automatic louvers will adjust to pump enough air just to the west sill and control the amount of air that is flowing to other sills,” explains Probel Varghese, a ventilation technician at Borden.
Given the importance of ventilation in the mine’s cost structure, the ventilation automation system has resulted in significant savings.
“By optimizing your electricity demand from a ventilation standpoint, it’s a big cost saver,” notes Lachance.
Electrician commissioning a new fan controller. The ventilation automation system has resulted in significant savings for Newmont, thanks to reduced energy consumption.
Built in 2019, Borden is the latest addition to Newmont’s Porcupine complex of mines, which produced 7.9 million grams of gold in 2022. The deposit is located where mining has traditionally not taken place and near a lake popular with holidaymakers; the company was especially keen to minimize the mine’s environmental impact. That has involved using many new technologies, including electric vehicles (which are quieter and cleaner) and burying large, noisy machinery, including air compressors.
“We just want to break that conception that mining is dirty, it’s dangerous, all that stuff,” explains Lachance.
However, Epiroc’s Ventilation on Demand technology has made a significant advance in automating the ventilation system, which is controlled by a computer that monitors the mine operation and calculates when and where fresh air is required. Using a chip in each miner’s helmet lamp, equipment, and a series of anchor points throughout the mine, the system detects precisely how many people and vehicles are in each sector and automatically adjusts the airflow to meet their needs.
As workers move into a new sector, the software automatically switches on the right fans at the right level to ensure they have enough air. As a result, the automated system has reduced the time mine staff need to dedicate to operating the ventilation system, freeing up workers to carry out other critical tasks. Varghese notes that a traditional mine would require one worker to constantly monitor and adjust the ventilation system around the clock. At Borden, the mine’s dispatch can leave this in the hands of the automated system with minimal oversight.
Since installation, Epiroc staff have continued to work at Borden, supporting the extension of the ventilation system as the underground mine expands into new areas.
“Electrical engineering is clearly their forte and the support from the team has been very good. Seamless I would say,” comments Lachance.
