Substations, HV switchrooms, trolley assist, battery-electric charging
Commissioning software for mine power where a single relay setting error can black out a pit that runs twenty-four hours a day.
Mine electrification spans everything from the grid interconnection and main substation down to trolley assist overhead catenary, HV switchrooms feeding fixed plant, and the DC fast chargers keeping a battery-electric haul fleet moving. Deskely holds substations, switchrooms, feeders, trolley infrastructure and charging bays as linked electrical assets, so protection testing, energisation sequencing and statutory HV sign-off happen in the order the grid code actually demands.
- Assets
- Substation, switchroom, feeder, trolley line
- Test
- Protection, energisation, load test
- Fleet
- Trolley assist and BEV charging
- Gate
- HV energisation permit
Choose your project type
The problem
Power to a mine site is a chain of permits, not a single switch-on event.
Between the grid interconnection or on-site generation and the last motor control centre in a crusher building sits a chain of transformers, switchgear, protection relays and feeder cables, each needing its own protection setting, insulation test and energisation permit before the next link can be proven live.
Trolley assist adds overhead catenary sections with their own isolation and earthing procedures for a live conductor above a haul road, while battery-electric fleet charging bays bring DC fast-charging infrastructure with interlocks that have never existed on a conventional diesel fleet.
Deskely tracks every substation, switchroom, feeder and trolley or charging asset as its own tag with its own protection and energisation record, so a mine's electrical engineer can see exactly which permit is outstanding rather than assuming the whole system is 'electrically complete'.
Setting up the register
Substations, switchrooms and feeders are structured to match the single line diagram, not the org chart.
The main substation, distribution switchrooms, ring main units and feeder cables are tagged against the single line diagram, with protection relays, CTs and VTs held as sub-assets of the switchgear they protect.
Trolley assist catenary sections and battery-electric charging bays sit as their own subsystems, each with isolation, earthing and interlock checklists suited to a live overhead conductor or a high-current DC charger respectively.
Vendor relay setting files and single line diagrams are parsed into that structure, so protection coordination studies can be verified against as-commissioned settings rather than reconciled by hand at the end of the project.
Execution
Protection testing and staged energisation run switchroom by switchroom, permit by permit.
Insulation resistance, primary and secondary injection testing and relay setting verification are captured against each switchgear tag before an energisation permit is raised for that section of the network.
Trolley assist sections are energised under a dedicated procedure with earthing verification and pantograph interface testing, while battery-electric charging bays run through interlock and communication protocol testing with the truck OEM's charging system before a vehicle is plugged in.
Load testing and power quality checks at each substation are logged against the tag, so a nuisance trip during ramp-up can be traced straight back to the relay setting or feeder that caused it.
Energisation and handover
HV energisation is permitted section by section, with statutory sign-off carried at the switchgear, not the project.
Statutory electrical inspection and HV authorisation sign-off is captured against each substation and switchroom, satisfying the site's electrical safety management plan and mine safety regulator requirements without a parallel compliance file.
Mechanical and electrical completion for trolley assist and charging infrastructure is issued once isolation, earthing and interlock testing is signed, so the haul fleet transition to electric traction can be scheduled with real evidence behind it.
The handover pack for the mine's electrical maintenance team includes as-commissioned relay settings, single line diagrams and test records per switchgear tag, exported directly from the register rather than assembled from site folders after the electricians have demobilised.
Arc flash study alignment and LOTO verification
A relay setting sheet that matches the coordination study on paper still has to be proven against the arc flash label bolted to the actual switchgear door.
An arc flash hazard study calculates incident energy levels and prescribes PPE categories and warning labels per switchgear cubicle, but that calculation is only valid if the protection relay settings actually installed on site match the settings the study assumed — a coordination study revision that never made it into the field settings leaves a label understating the real hazard.
Lockout-tagout points for every feeder, motor control centre and trolley or charging isolation have to be verified as physically isolating the equipment they are labelled against, not just electrically de-energised, and on a site retrofitting battery-electric charging infrastructure into an existing network, new isolation points are easy to miss off the LOTO procedure entirely.
Deskely links each arc flash label and LOTO isolation point to the specific switchgear tag and its as-commissioned relay settings, with verification testing recorded showing the isolation point actually removes all hazardous energy sources, so the site's electrical safety management plan is backed by tested isolation points rather than an assumption that the label and the procedure were updated together.
How it runs
From grid connection to a live, protected network.
Mine power commissioning is a sequence of permits, and the register has to enforce that sequence rather than let it be assumed.
- 01
Tag against the single line diagram
Substations, switchrooms, feeders, trolley sections and charging bays registered as linked electrical assets.
- 02
Test protection before energisation
Insulation resistance, injection testing and relay setting verification captured per switchgear tag.
- 03
Energise in sequence
Staged energisation permits raised per substation, with trolley and charging infrastructure following their own isolation procedures.
- 04
Hand over as-commissioned settings
Statutory sign-off and relay settings exported per tag for the electrical maintenance team.
FAQ
Questions about Mine electrification and power scopes.
Keep reading
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