Open-pit mines in Indonesia run haul trucks around the clock, and any charging downtime directly cuts tonnage. A battery swap station lets an electric truck exchange a depleted pack for a charged one in 5 to 6 minutes, matching the uptime of diesel refuelling. This design guide gives mining procurement teams the bay layout, charger count, and grid math needed to spec a EV truck swap site for a 20 to 40 truck fleet.
A swap station comprises a swap bay, a battery buffer rack, and a charging hall. For a fleet of 30 dump trucks each on a 22-minute haul cycle, one swap bay handles about 60 swaps per day, but mine reliability rules call for two bays so a jam never idles the pit. The buffer rack should hold 1.5 times the active pack count to absorb the charging lag.
| Design element | 20-truck site | 40-truck site |
|---|---|---|
| Swap bays | 2 | 3 |
| Buffer packs | 30 | 60 |
| Chargers (240 kW) | 12 | 24 |
| Peak grid load | 3.2 MW | 6.4 MW |
| Swap time | 5-6 min | 5-6 min |
Each TZ5E pack is 600 kWh LFP. At 240 kW a full charge takes about 2.5 hours, so the charger count must exceed the truck count to keep buffers full. For 30 active packs needing one charge per 4-hour duty, 12 chargers deliver the throughput with margin. The 3.2 MW peak load typically requires a dedicated 4 MVA mine substation; many Indonesian sites pair this with a 2 MW solar plus battery farm to cut diesel genset hours.
The swap bay uses a gantry that lifts the 4.2-tonne pack from below in 90 seconds, then seats the buffered pack in another 90 seconds plus 3 minutes of connection and test. Enclosure is inert-gas protected and the bay is rated for Zone 2 mining dust. We require two independent interlocks so a pack cannot be energised while a worker is in the bay.
A diesel TZ5E-class truck loses about 25 minutes per shift to refuel and queue. The 5 to 6 minute swap recovers 19 minutes per shift, adding roughly 6 percent daily haul cycles. At 300 tonnes per cycle that is 1,800 extra tonnes per truck per year, worth $90,000 at $50 per tonne haul contract, far exceeding the station's per-truck amortised cost.
A 20-truck swap station with two bays, 30 buffer packs, and 12 chargers costs about $6.8 million installed, excluding grid. Against the uptime gain it pays back in about 3.2 years on a single-shift site and under 2 years on continuous three-shift operation. The 8-year battery warranty covers the buffer packs, removing mid-life replacement risk.
| Capital item | 20-truck cost |
|---|---|
| Swap bays (2) | $1,400,000 |
| Buffer packs (30) | $3,000,000 |
| Chargers (12) | $1,200,000 |
| Civil and controls | $1,200,000 |
| Total | $6,800,000 |
Swap-ready haul trucks need a bottom-discharge pack interface, which our TZ5E electric dump truck page documents in full. Indonesian importers can read pit-road axle-load and forestry-port rules in our Indonesia electric truck market guide.
Shaanxi Fenghan Trading designs the swap station alongside the truck order, supplying layout CAD, charger specs, and on-site commissioning with a Chinese engineer on rotation for the first 90 days. We also train the mine maintenance crew on pack handling so the site reaches design uptime within the first month.
For round-the-clock Indonesian mining, a 5 to 6 minute swap is the only charging model that matches diesel uptime, and the tonnage math makes the capital easy to justify to the board.
A swap station is a piece of mine infrastructure, not just a charger, so commissioning matters as much as the trucks. Shaanxi Fenghan Trading supplies the layout CAD, the charger single-line diagrams, and a Chinese engineer on rotation for the first 90 days to bring the site to design uptime. We train the mine maintenance crew on pack handling, the gantry interlocks, and the thermal checks, because a swap bay running 60 cycles a day cannot afford a learning-curve failure on week two of production.
We also integrate the station with the mine's dispatch system so the scheduler sees pack state across the buffer rack in real time and routes trucks to the bay with a charged pack rather than a queue. This software layer is what converts the theoretical 5 to 6 minute swap into a real 6-minute average once the human and mechanical variability of a pit is included, and it is the difference between a spec sheet and a tonnage target met.
The 3.2 MW peak for a 20-truck site is a serious draw in remote Indonesian pits where the grid may be hundreds of kilometres away. We pair the station with a 2 MW solar array and a 4 MWh buffer battery so the mine cuts diesel genset hours by 60 to 70 percent, which is often a larger saving than the truck energy itself. The buffer also flattens the charge curve so the packs are not all drawing at once, protecting both the local microgrid and the pack longevity.
For off-grid sites we model the generator sizing so the swap station never starves the pit of power during a cloudy week, and we recommend a 20 percent spare on the solar and storage to cover monsoon downtime. The capital for the renewable layer sits on top of the station cost but typically pays back inside 2.5 years on fuel alone, before counting the carbon credit the mine can claim.
The swap bay is rated Zone 2 for mining dust and uses inert-gas protection plus two independent interlocks so a pack cannot be energised with a worker inside. We document the lockout-tagout procedure in the local language and drill it with the crew before the first live swap. Indonesian mines are tightening high-voltage worker-safety rules, and a swap station designed to the coming standard avoids a costly retrofit when the regulator updates the code.
Specify the TZ5E with the bottom-discharge pack interface, design the station with redundant bays and a 1.5 times buffer, and add the solar-storage layer where the grid is thin. The combination is what makes a 5 to 6 minute swap not just possible but reliable enough to bet the pit's daily tonnage on it.
Mines rarely fund the full station on day one, and they do not need to. We phase the build so two bays and 12 chargers come first with 20 buffer packs, covering a 10 to 15 truck initial fleet, then the second bay and the solar-storage layer are added once the pit proves the uptime gain in real tonnes. This staged spend keeps the early capital under $4 million and ties each tranche to a measured return, which is far easier to approve than a single $10 million commitment before any truck has turned a wheel on site. The phasing also lets the maintenance crew learn the bay on a smaller fleet before the full pit depends on it for every shift.
Ready to electrify your fleet? Contact Shaanxi Fenghan Trading — authorized Dongfeng EV truck exporter. WhatsApp: +86 153 1943 1311 | Email: sales@fenghan-trade.com | dongfengevtrucks.com
🌐 Our Network: Fenghan Trade (SAGMOTO/SHACMAN Truck Export) · heavy duty mining dump truck 6x4 8x4