Consultant urging miners to share information to develop training for battery electric vehicles | CBC News

The founder of a Midland, Ont. company that helps mining companies transition their fleets from diesel to electric vehicles says workers need more and better training.

David Lyon is president and CEO of Zero Nexus.

Lyon says it’s only in the last two or three years that mines have taken on electric fleets, and the vehicles are starting to arrive on sites.

He says as the adoption of the technology speeds ahead, there’s a lag in gathering the information needed to train workers.

“So it’s pretty difficult for anyone to generate training or any awareness initiatives around those gaps with the absence of information,” said Lyon.

However he expects that information will soon be pouring in as Canadian miners move forward with the technology.

“Canada is an early adopter and the Canadian mines sort of have the first view at this and can actually lead, build training programs, build workshops, build different devices, white papers around those gaps and in planning for a fleet and get that out around the world and to new miners even in Canada,” he said.

Lyon says the normally ultra-competitive industry is starting to share information about their experiences with battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in mining in the interest of moving everyone in the industry forward.

He is calling for the establishment of a steering committee to call mining companies to the table with his company to find ways to meet the demands of workforce training in any number of areas including maintenance, engineering, planning and operations, and safety.

Lyon advocates for training that is unbiased, that is, not geared to any particular company’s product, but provides case studies and information, both good and bad, from a third party.

Glencore has announced the goal of its Onaping Depth project just outside Sudbury is total electrification.

The president of Mine Mill Smelter Workers 598, Unifor says his members are happy to get any training they can.

Eric Boulay says much of it is currently done by the companies that manufacture the vehicles.

“A lot of it is being developed in house because these pieces of equipment are brand new and the manufacturers are of course providing some documentation with it,” he said. “A lot of these things have yet to go through real-world testing.”

Boulay says the workers are at the forefront of sharing information as they encounter the machines on the job.

He’d like to see, as Lyon suggests, the sharing of information in a more comprehensive and unbiased approach.

“The manufacturers are going to have their opinion, the end users are going to have their opinion of the equipment too, the purchasers are going to have their opinion, the people doing the maintenance are going to have their opinion, and you want to put those all together so you have a well-rounded document, or set of rules or procedures,” he said.

Some BEV courses offered in northeastern Ontario

Training offered in the northeast includes an industrial BEV maintenance certificate at Cambrian College in Sudbury.

That consists of four two-day courses covering BEV safety, components, design, maintenance , troubleshooting, and hands-on training in an underground mine.

There’s a virtual course offered by Collège Boréal in Sudbury providing fundamental knowledge of mining BEVs from various manufacturers, including safety procedures.

Northern College in Timmins offers a two-part, self-paced course providing an overview of battery safety, design, control, charging and maintenance along with larger systems BEV training.