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My naive impression is that heavy industry is (and has been) doing a lot of research into aligning their processes with more intermittent future energy characte
by ethbr0 4y ago
My naive impression is that heavy industry is (and has been) doing a lot of research into aligning their processes with more intermittent future energy characteristics.
I.e. moving from a "we want to run the plant at optimal efficiency, damn the load pattern" to "we want to be able to optimize by following energy costs, even if that means we need to idle sometimes"
Processes were very well optimized for the former, hence the greenfield for research into the latter.
- fbdab103 4y ago>even if that means we need to idle sometimes Is that even possible? For a huge industrial process like a steel mill, I think the capital and operational costs are so massive you want to run them continuously. Even "turning the plant on" could take many hours to get everything to temperature and stable.
- ethbr0 4y agoThat's where the temperature requirements come in. Afaik, they're the prime driver of intermittent-tolerance.
- tomatotomato37 4y agoThe pandemic showed industry that even if they wanted constant input & output it isn't guaranteed, and if you have to shutdown processes either because of grid issues or because a logistical quagmire is interrupting ore supply it's still a shutdown.