Mining’s electric shift solidifies

Tommi Valkonen has spent much of his career working at the intersection of electrification, batteries and mining technology. Today, he leads BEV strategy for Sandvik trucks and loaders and is helping shape how the industry approaches mine electrification at scale.

In September 2026, he will also host Sandvik’s Future of Mining customer event in Tampere, Finland, where industry leaders will gather to discuss the next generation of mining technology and mine development.

The industry seems to be talking differently about electrification now. What’s changed?

We’ve definitely gone through a bit of a hype cycle over the past few years during which we’ve seen a lot of trials and pilot projects, as well as large fleet deployments in true production environments. Some of those deployments were successful, some were not, but overall, the industry has learned a huge amount.

Now we’re entering a more mature phase. Mining companies are returning to ask harder questions around productivity, reliability and return on investment; the evergreen requirements for success in mining regardless of how your equipment is powered.

Decarbonization really matters — it’s one of the reasons I still work in this industry — but I’ve learned that the fastest way to achieve decarbonization is to spend less time talking about it and more time on making BEV systems deliver on miner’s operational and financial expectations. That’s when large-scale adoption really starts happening.

So electrification is becoming a business decision as well as an environmental one?

It has to be both, but when it comes to scaling, operational performance becomes critical.

The signal from our customers is that they will not accept paying a premium for zero-emission solutions, be that on total cost of ownership or productivity. They expect the equipment to perform at the same level or better than diesel in terms of productivity, reliability and cost efficiency.

What’s encouraging is that we’re now seeing real examples where that’s already happening. At Eldorado Gold’s Lamaque Complex, for example, the battery-electric haul trucks are outperforming diesel trucks on uphill haul cycles, because electric drivetrains accelerate faster to higher average speeds on ramp. That directly improves productivity, by more than 30% in the case of Lamaque.

At the same time, they’re reducing ventilation requirements underground, which becomes a huge advantage as mine go deeper. At Lamaque, that benefit is large enough to make BEVs a clear number one choice in terms of life-of-mine economics.

“The biggest success factor is understanding that electrification is a system, not just a vehicle.”

What separates successful electrification projects from unsuccessful ones?

The biggest success factor is understanding that electrification is a system, not just a vehicle.

A battery-electric truck on its own does not automatically solve anything. You need the charging infrastructure, the operating strategy, the maintenance planning and the workforce training to all work together.

The most successful operations tend to involve Sandvik very early in the planning process. They want to understand the infrastructure requirements, the charging philosophy, the safety systems and the operational implications before they even start talking about the machines. That kind of preparation shortens the learning curve significantly.

A few years ago, battery safety dominated the conversation. Is that still the case?

I’m happy to say the conversation has matured significantly. The initial focus on safety was understandable — people were unfamiliar with the technology and there were a lot of headlines around batteries in consumer products.

But the industry has learned a lot since then. The technology has improved, training has improved and people now understand battery systems much better.

At the Electric Mine event in Lisbon this year, it was interesting to see how much the discussion had moved beyond safety and toward operational performance and implementation strategy.

Operators seem to adapt to BEVs very quickly. Why is that?

Because they genuinely like using them! This is one of the funny things about electrification. You can spend months discussing change management and training plans, but then operators get into a BEV for the first time and they usually fall in love with it.

BEVs are quieter than diesel models, there’s less vibration, less heat and the overall environment underground improves significantly. We often hear customers joking that operators start fighting over who gets to drive the battery-electric machines.

Where do you see the industry heading next?

We’re moving away from individual trials and toward mine-wide electrification thinking. Mining companies are starting to look at electrification together with automation, ventilation design, energy infrastructure and digital mine-planning. It’s becoming part of a much bigger operational system.

I also think the future will involve multiple technologies working together. Battery-electric equipment will play a major role, but so will diesel-electric and hybrid systems, and trolley systems for select applications. Charging approaches will also differ based on things like mining method and the operational strategy of the mine.

There won’t be one universal answer for every operation. But overall, the direction is clear. Part of our approach going forward is to recognize that when battery electric is the right tool for the job, it can already clearly outperform traditional approaches, but also that this won’t be the case in every application any time soon.

We want to build on the cases where BEVs deliver real value and work hard to make that a reality for more applications going forward.