Interesting, thanks! > The “virtual battery” concept relies on installing adjustable heat exchangers that can maintain the energy balance in each electrolysis

Interesting, thanks! > The “virtual battery” concept relies on installing adjustable heat exchangers that can maintain the energy balance in each electrolysis cell irrespective of shifting power inputs. Since aluminium production requires a constant energy supply, any fluctuation could have heavy consequences for the molten metal. The technology also ensures that grid power fluctuations do not affect the magnetic fields in the electrolysis cells. This seems to be solving the even-harder problem of handling on-demand/dynamic fluctuations rather than planning for a diurnal cycle. I wonder if there is scope to use a heat reservoir (molten salt or similar) as a buffer for these sorts of process; basically if you need to dump heat into a process perhaps you can shift the heat production but leave the process itself unchanged. Amusingly I was reading the wrong Wikipedia last night and it’s mentioned right there too: > Particularly in Australia these smelters are used to control electrical network demand, and as a result power is supplied to the smelter at a very low price. However power must not be interrupted for more than 4–5 hours, since the pots have to be repaired at significant cost if the liquid metal solidifies. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_smelting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_smelting