Liebherr and ENGIE partner to offer carbon-neutral solutions for the mining industry

Las Vegas (USA), 14 September 2021 – Liebherr Mining and ENGIE have officially announced their partnership on zero-emission mining solutions for a sustainable future at MINExpo International® 2021. Each company will bring its own expertise and knowledge to the table, to tackle the challenges of decarbonising the mining industry. The collaboration aims to evaluate different renewable energies, in particular renewable hydrogen, and hydrogen derived fuels, to develop an integrated well-to-wheel solution for the mining industry.

In consideration of the Paris Climate Agreement, Liebherr has taken the challenge of finding future energy ecosystems to power its mobile and heavy-duty mining equipment. The large range of application areas and fields of use of Liebherr construction and mining equipment requires an equally large variety of suitable drive systems to best meet the needs of customers. Liebherr strives for long-term sustainable solutions, investigating different options centred on environmental impact, safety, cost, reliability, maintainability, and flexibility. Liebherr already offers a nearly full range of electric excavators and trolley equipped trucks. Liebherr Mining has a clear roadmap to achieve low carbon solutions in 2022 for the entire truck and excavator product line, along with fossil fuel free solutions for most applications by 2030.

This joint proposal between Liebherr and ENGIE covers all considerations for the implementation of practical solutions. It will validate the best solutions in terms of technical, economic, financial, and business aspects, along with the removal of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. ENGIE, as a front-runner in the development of a worldwide industrial-scale renewable hydrogen economy, will contribute with its expertise including engineering, R&D, design, construction, operation, and inception, while Liebherr will bring its knowledge and experience in mining equipment and operation.

The common approach considers cost and GHG emissions of the holistic well-to-wheel solution, supporting the selection, design, and development of the right energy supply chain and zero emission mining equipment.

This convergence of Liebherr's and ENGIE's respective experiences in the decarbonisation of the mining sector from design to industrial deployment, is key to providing customers and the industry with the most valuable zero emission solutions. The synergy between the two organisations forms a partnership well equipped to deliver high-efficiency and carbon-neutral solutions for strategic mining markets – contributing to environmentally conscious mining.

“We are very honored by this collaboration with Liebherr to work on solutions for decarbonising the mining industry, a sector with huge energy demand at the core of the energy transition. This partnership perfectly embodies ENGIE’s strategy to develop hydrogen-based solutions on an industrial scale to help energy-intensive industries like the mining sector in their journey to decarbonisation”, said Michèle AZALBERT, Managing Director of ENGIE Green Hydrogen.

Oliver Weiss, EVP R&D, Engineering and Manufacturing of Liebherr’s Mining division continued, “We are very impressed with the real ambition of ENGIE to decarbonise the mining industry and highly value the opportunity to collaborate with ENGIE. The complementary in-depth expertise that ENGIE brings to this partnership supports Liebherr’s strategy to provide the mining industry with practical and scalable decarbonisation solutions based on renewable hydrogen and hydrogen-based fuels.”