Clayton Franklin

With over 25 years of engineering experience across the mining and renewable energy sectors, Clayton founded EPCA in 2023 with a vision to decarbonise mining by electrifying existing diesel equipment. His early career saw him work across mining and renewable energy sectors, including his role with Bushlight, where he delivered over 140 solar and hybrid energy systems to remote Indigenous communities in northern Australia.

Over the years, Clayton’s hands-on experience evolved into a vision: to help heavy industry decarbonise without compromising on performance or cost. Clayton’s skills took him to FFI, where he led the design of a hydrogen-electric mining truck, and he started to see the opportunity for an electric truck.

Driven by his Indigenous heritage rooted in caring for the land, he started EPCA and, with his team, completed Australia’s first retrofit of a 100-tonne diesel mining truck to battery-electric in Perth last year.

"Join Clayton Franklin, founder and Chief Engineer of EPCA, as he shares the inside story of Australia’s first 100-tonne battery-electric haul truck retrofit. How do you turn a diesel truck into a zero-emission truck that outperforms its original design? And why does retrofitting offer a faster, more practical path to decarbonising mining fleets?

Clayton will pull back the curtain on the engineering breakthroughs, challenges, and surprising lessons learned from the CAT777 retrofit project. He’ll explain why mining operations need to rethink charging strategies, energy management, and even how haul roads are built. He’ll also share exclusive data from EPCA’s field testing, showing how battery-electric trucks can match, and sometimes beat, diesel trucks in real-world mining conditions.

More than just a technical talk, this session challenges the status quo. If miners don’t act now, will they be forced to rely on imported electric trucks, ceding control to foreign manufacturers?"

Key takeaway:

      - Understand how retrofitting diesel trucks to battery-electric can cut emissions now.

      - Learn real-world performance results from Australia’s first 100t electric haul truck retrofit.

      - Explore how charging cycles and energy management impact mine operations.

      - See why retrofits offer a faster, lower-risk path than waiting for new OEM trucks.

      - Discover how Australian innovation can reduce reliance on imported electric trucks.

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