PERTH, Australia — Fortescue Metals Group announced today it has purchased two new battery-operated locomotives from Progress Rail to haul ore from mine to port in northwest Australia. The new eight-axle locomotives will have an energy capacity of 14.5 megawatt-hours and will be built at Progress Rail’s facility in Sete Lagoas, Brazil.
Fortescue Chief Executive Officer Elizabeth Gaines says, “The purchase of these new battery powered locomotives marks an important milestone in the decarbonisation of Fortescue’s locomotive fleet and demonstrates our commitment to achieving carbon neutrality for Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030, as we diversify from a pure play iron ore producer to a green renewables and resources company.”
The new locomotive model will be called BE14.5BB and will most likely utilize a similar frame design from Progress Rail’s SD70ACe-BB that’s previously been built in Brazil. The SD70ACe-BB model is currently used in meter gauge service in South America and has a frame that’s over 2 feet longer than the domestic SD70ACe-T4 to accommodate the longer trucks underneath. Based on the BE14.5BB illustration from Fortescue, the unit will apparently use the same truck design used under existing SD70ACe-BBs, but with larger traction motors to operate on Frotescue’s standard gauge track in Australia.
To accommodate the large amount of batteries and equipment to store this much energy, the locomotive will feature a full-width carbody design to maximize storage space on the locomotive. Fortescue is expected to take delivery of the first BE14.5BB locomotive in 2023.
This is the second battery-electric locomotive from Progress Rail after its six-axle Joule switching locomotive received its first order in 2019. This switching locomotive is also being built in Brazil with the first, a BE1.9C, delivered in late 2020 to Brazilian mining company Vale. Progress Rail’s second Joule, a BE2.4C is being constructed for Pacific Harbor Lines in California.
Useful for getting the taxpayer dollars and wokepublic relations
Keep whining. Some of us want to have a planet worth living on.
Most, if not all of this, is being done by private entities, which don’t lay a finger on your taxes. What’s there to complain about? Ignoring the environment-friendliness, these locomotives:
-Have few parts, making them last longer.
-Have regenerative braking, meaning they can charge while working.
-Are practically silent, and if the complaints from NS crews about the AC44C6Ms are anything to show, its that crews like a quiet locomotive.
14.5 Megawatt-Hours is pretty impressive, almost 20,000 Horsepower hours or a 4400 HP diesel running flat out for 4.5 hours. (Useful capacity will be somewhat less.) Charging requirements might be minimum if the mine to port run is mostly down-grade, as they usually have regenerative braking.