Greenbushes Lithium mine is located adjacent to the town of Greenbushes in Western Australia, approximately 250 kilometers south of Perth. In the expansion project of the mine, VACON® NXC Low Harmonic AC drives were chosen to control new primary and regrind ball mills. VACON® Start-up services were also needed.

1. Vacon case study Greenbushes Lithium Operations
www.vacon.com1
Photo by Martin Versluis
Keeping things on track
at Greenbushes
Client name: Greenbushes Lithium Operations
Segment: Mining & Metals
Products used: VACON®
NXC Low Harmonic /
VACON®
Spare Parts
Location: Fremantle, Western Australia

2. Vacon case study Greenbushes Lithium Operations
www.vacon.com2
Key facts of client:
• Greenbushes mine owned by Talison Lithium,
a global leader in the field
• Greenbushes mine currently being expanded to double
production to 740,000 tonnes of lithium concentrate /
110,000 tonnes per annum of lithium carbonate equivalent
• This amounts to 1/3 of world’s production of lithium
• Production capacity will be equivalent to entire global
market in 2010 m

3. Vacon case study Greenbushes Lithium Operations
www.vacon.com3
Challenge:
• Primary and regrind ball mills delivered to
Greenbushes in March 2012
• Automation Alliance (the system integrator) chose two
VACON®
NXC Low Harmonic drives to control the speed of
primary ball mill motor and regrind ball motor
• Soon emerged that one of the AFE filters in the drive was
tripping out on a fault

4. Vacon case study Greenbushes Lithium Operations
www.vacon.com4
Solution:
• VACON Service team bought in to get to
bottom of problem
• LCL Capacitors in AFE solution related to
‘V’ output discovered to be the issue
• Filter had to be completely removed
and sent to Vacon Pacific’s head office in
Melbourne. Drives were able to continue
operating as usual without affecting
commissioning and production
• LCL filters replaced by a VACON®
Spare
Parts team. Installation took place within
3 hours, minimizing down time.

5. Vacon case study Greenbushes Lithium Operations
www.vacon.com5
Testimonial:
“We are very happy with how the Vacon drives are performing.
In particular, the fact that the problem with the LCL filter only
resulted in a minimum of downtime was a relief.”
Malcolm Barnes
Principle Electrical Engineer
Automation Alliance
For full story:
http://www.vacon.com/Vacon/media/References/Keeping-things-on-track-at-Greenbushes/
Story first published 8th April 2013