3ME achieves major milestone with IECEx certification for BladeVOLT battery system
Australian energy systems specialist 3ME Technology says it has achieved IECEx hazardous area certification for its BladeVOLT® battery system, marking a major company milestone and a step change in what is now possible for electrification in hazardous underground mining environments.
The certification, granted under the IECEx scheme to the IEC 60079 series of international standards, represents the culmination of more than eight years of sustained engineering, testing and iteration, clearing one of the most demanding technical and regulatory hurdles in underground mining, 3ME says.
The achievement reinforces 3ME Technology’s position as a specialist in ultra safe battery systems for mission critical applications, including some of the most demanding operating conditions on earth.
“This milestone has been eight years in the making, and there were many moments where it would have been easier to walk away,” Justin Bain, CEO of 3ME Technology, said. “This certification is a testament to the resilience of our team.”
Crucially, the technical breakthroughs achieved through the hazardous area program extend well beyond a single product.
“The breakthroughs achieved here didn’t stay in one product; they’ve directly lifted the safety, robustness and confidence of our surface mining, defence and subsea maritime battery programs,” Bain said.
Hazardous area certification requires electrical systems not only to prevent failure, but to manage the consequences of credible fault conditions safely. In high energy battery systems, this fundamentally reshapes how safety must be engineered, 3ME says.
The BladeVOLT hazardous area system has been developed using an exclusion led safety architecture.
“Hazardous area certification is unforgiving by design and rightly so,” Bain said. “This wasn’t about getting a product approved; it was about earning the right to electrify environments where failure is not an option.”
The hazardous area certification program was supported by the Australian Coal Industry’s Research Program (ACARP), whose contribution extended beyond funding to include experienced industry monitors and deep operational insight, helping ensure the technology met the highest safety and operational performance expectations of real world underground mining environments.
3ME Technology says it has deliberately targeted heavy, high emitting machinery, where electrification delivers the greatest safety, health and productivity gains and where the technical challenge is most acute.
BladeVOLT combines IECEx certified safety performance with a modular, scalable battery architecture, enabling certified hazardous area systems to be manufactured consistently, cost effectively and at scale, without the cost and complexity typically associated with bespoke solutions, it claims.
With IECEx certification now achieved, 3ME Technology is preparing to deploy BladeVOLT into increasingly demanding applications, applying the same standards driven safety philosophy across underground and surface mining, defence and subsea environments wherever consequence management and reliability are paramount.
The post 3ME achieves major milestone with IECEx certification for BladeVOLT battery system appeared first on International Mining.