Nickel Industries (ASX:NIC) is hoping to garner the attention of potential electric vehicle (EVs) and battery maker partners after advising it is trialling the use of EVs within its operating fleet of trucks in Indonesia.
Speaking to Mining.com.au, Nickel Industries Managing Director Justin Werner says the company’s decision to adopt the use of EVs at the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) and Hengjaya Mine operations is strategic..
The MD notes the $2.97 billion market capitalisation company’s adoption of using EVs is part of its strategy to achieve a 50% reduction in carbon intensity by 2035 and net zero emissions by 2050.
“[The trial] aligns with any potential EV or battery maker…it aligns very nicely with their business.
It still is a trial at this stage and like all of these things there are considerations around recharging capacity and how we build that. We’re not going to recharge them from a coal-fired power plant, so we need to look at that.
Being a trial, we’re still focused very much on cycle times and charge times et cetera, but it’s something that we’re very strongly committed to. This is just really the first step in being able to run that trial and basically get all of the numbers and then look at how we move forward from there.”
Werner expects to witness a significant diesel reduction, a milestone the company has achieved in the past after establishing a 396-kilowatt-hour solar project in Indonesia. He says this reduced the company’s diesel usage by about 33 million litres.
Werner adds the use of EVs not only aligns with potential partners, but also aligns with the company’s own decarbonisation roadmap.
As part of the roadmap, the company hopes to establish a 200-megawatt plus 20-megawatt-hour battery energy storage system peak solar project in Indonesia.
The MD states this project is touted to almost double the solar output of Indonesia.
“For the past several years, we’ve been working on our decarbonisation roadmap. We announced some time ago our intention for a 200-megawatt peak plus 20-megawatt hour battery energy storage system solar project. We just the other month signed that final binding agreement for that.
To put it in perspective, there are about 269 megawatts of installed solar capacity in Indonesia and our project is 200 megawatts. We’re effectively doubling the solar output of Indonesia in a single project.”
Nickel Industries is a low-cost nickel producer with a suite of nickel projects located in Indonesia.
Write to Adam Drought at Mining.com.au
Images: Nickel Industries
