Technique for Low Amperage Potline Operation for Electricity Grid Storage

Abstract

Following a critical review and analysis of steady-state energy balance windows for large modern cell technologies [Taylor et al., Met. Mat. Transactions E, 9th Sept. 2014], the issue of a substantial reduction in energy input and heat output to a specific cell technology is addressed in this paper. To investigate the feasibility of such a reduction, the dynamic response to substantial changes in cell amperage and energy input must be quantified. If large amperage reductions can be shown to be feasible and to have no major detrimental affects, a flexible amperage operating philosophy would allow the use of smelting cells as an energy reservoir in the following way: in times of high electricity demand the cells would operate at reduced amperage, releasing electricity to the grid, while in times of low demand or an over-supply of electricity on the grid, the cells would store the surplus electricity in the form of additional aluminum metal. However, to take the above concept out of the realms of the theoretical, it will first be necessary to demonstrate an ability to predict and control the response of the cell to such changes in energy input through regulating the heat losses from the cell. The process of regulation of cell heat loss is quite foreign to operators of aluminum smelters, because the technology to regulate heat loss from smelting cells has not existed previously. This technology does now exist in the form of patented heat exchangers [Taylor et al., US Patent 7,901,617 B2, Mar. 8, 2011], but its impact on smelter cell walls must be examined in a dynamic analysis to determine the effect on the molten bath temperature and liquid mass within the cell. The objective of this paper therefore is to perform a first-order analysis of this problem, and to identify the key scientific issues in regulating cell heat loss and in the operating philosophy of heat loss regulation.