Compressors raise safety at Dalkia coal mines

Antwerp, Belgium – Miner Dalkia Industry CZ a.s. has recently completed a six-year project to replace its compressed air equipment with a modernised system that provides higher safety for miners and reduced running costs.

Annually, the Czech-based company can produce 2.4 billion cubic meters of compressed air for the miners working as far as a kilometre below the ground at its nine active mines.

When tunneling passages that air can’t get through, ventilation pipes with fans are needed to exhaust not only used air, but also some methane at the same time.

Compressed air is also the safest propulsion medium for fans. Besides fans, in mine operation other equipment is run by compressed air, such as drilling machines, transport gates, pick hammers and hand tools.

“The main requirement is large and stable output, a pressure of 4 to 4.5 bar at a temperature below 60°C,” said Laurent Tupinier, CEO of Dalkia Industry CZ. “For work in mine shafts, compressed air is absolutely key for operational and safety reasons.”

The 20 new compressor systems – all from Atlas Copco – were delivered as complete and integrated packages, equipped with all components, internal pipe systems and connections.

All units, Type ZH 10000 and ZH 15000, are water-cooled, two-stage centrifugal air compressors and connected to central controllers which, if needed, alternate operation of individual compressors and monitor the entire compressor station.

This safeguards that the compressors produce only the actual needed volume and unnecessary running times are avoided. The results are drastic savings of energy cost and lower CO2 emissions.

Thanks to their energy recovery system, the cooling water of the compressors heats up the water used in the miner’s showers, which additionally saves energy cost.

According to Dalkia, the new equipment minimises maintenance time as the old equipment demanded constant attention and today it’s enough to inspect the compressors once or twice a shift, which only takes several minutes.