3 ms·

The article is really misleading: If I understand correctly, what Trimet will do is to REDUCE its power consumption on demand in order to reduce the stress on t

The article is really misleading: If I understand correctly, what Trimet will do is to REDUCE its power consumption on demand in order to reduce the stress on the power grid at times when there's not enough energy available for everyone. Since Trimet alone consumes about 0.7 % of Germany's energy production, adapting its energy consumption can help a lot to stabilize the power grid. Here's an article that makes this a bit more clear: http://www.renewablesinternational.net/german-aluminum-firm-rescues-grid-twice/150/407/82143/ http://www.renewablesinternational.net/german-aluminum-firm-... The general term for this is "demand response": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_response https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_response The author of the Bloomberg article seems to think that they will use the Aluminium as a battery, releasing energy back to the grid, which to my understanding is not at all what they are planning to do (or even possible, for that matter). BTW, a Businessweek article seems to get this wrong as well: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-26/germanys-trimet-aluminium-turns-smelting-tanks-into-batteries http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-26/germanys-tri...

sveme 12y ago
It's really a badly written article about an interesting topic - and I'm not sure what the real story is. Considering the graphic: http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2014-11-26/tech_aluminumgraphic49_630.jpg http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2014-11-26/tech_aluminumgraphic49_... it looks like they are indeed releasing energy back to the grid. Additional article: http://www.aluinfo.de/index.php/gda-news-en/items/trimet-develops-virtual-electricity-storage.html http://www.aluinfo.de/index.php/gda-news-en/items/trimet-dev... It looks more like they are adapting the process to handle energy fluctuations. The current process most likely requires a steady current and they are adapting the process to ramp up during times of cheap energy and throttle it during times of expensive energy. Still no battery, more like a balancer, adaptively throttling energy consumption. Edit More information from a paper abstract [1]: High Frequency Power Modulation - TRIMET Smelters Provide Primary Control Power for Stabilizing the Frequency in the Electricity Grid Scope The strong growth of renewable energy in Germany leads to high prices fluctuations, varying with the availability of these energy resources. To deal with this situation, TRIMET is using the tool “power modulation” since 2008 to compensate these strong price effects. Simultaneously the strong growth of renewable energy sources leads to a need of primary regulation energy for stabilizing the electricity grid at 50 Hz. In this context, TRIMET is the first electricity consumer world wide, which provides primary regulation energy by modulating a consumer. Traditionally this source of energy is only provided by power plants or energy storage plants, e.g. pumped energy storage or stationery batteries. http://www.programmaster.org/PM/PM.nsf/ApprovedAbstracts/281A8D0A5E4E0F0085257A48004DD9DA?OpenDocument http://www.programmaster.org/PM/PM.nsf/ApprovedAbstracts/281... Now were getting closer to the real thing. Edit II [2]: TRIMET Aluminium SE is developing a process that can turn electro- lytic furnaces for the production of primary aluminum in collabora- tion with conventional power plants into energy storage reservoirs for renewable energy. Aluminum has a high energy density. This makes its production energy-intensive and aluminum smelters re- cipients of base-load electricity. Excess energy is stored in the light metal. The principle behind the new process is the grid-commutated operation of the production equipment. To ensure this, the electrolysis cells are modified so that their output can be increased or reduced for several hours, as needed. The ope- rating point is selected in such a way that the output can be raised or lowered by more than 25 percent for hours. This makes it possible to provide enormous storage capacity. Using this method, TRIMET aluminum smelters could provide outputs of up to 130 megawatts with future capacities of up to 6,000 megawatt hours. This corresponds to the daily energy consumption of two million people. The “virtual battery” relies on the improved flexibility of aluminum elec- trolysis. With this method, TRIMET is revolutionizing the basic principle of a manufacturing process that has existed for more than 120 years. An electrolytic furnace is similar to a water container whose walls are made of ice. To ensure that the tank does not melt, the ambient temperature must be kept very low. But it must not reach a temperature that is too cold, or the water in the tank will freeze. Similarly, the temperature of the electrolytic furnace must be harmonized in order to stabilize the fur- nace walls under fluctuating power supply levels. The process developed by TRIMET regulates this balance through the clever use of exhaust heat, a form of thermal insulation that can be adjusted in an innovative way. The process offers significant advantages over other storage systems. At 85 percent, the efficiency factor of the aluminum storage reservoir approaches that of pump storage reservoirs, far higher than those of compressed-air or hydrogen storage reservoirs. what’s more, the system does not require new power lines, since it is integrated into the existing high-voltage grid. [2] http://www.trimet.de/fileadmin/pdf/trimet-at-a-glance-2013.pdf http://www.trimet.de/fileadmin/pdf/trimet-at-a-glance-2013.p...
- vilda 12y ago
  Nope, they don't release energy as such, just "resell" it. They buy and consume energy when it's cheap, then they sell it at higher price by not using it. That's why they call it "virtual".
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  The term "virtual battery" in Anderson's article in conjunction with the diagram you show is what's throwing me. It's possible to create a metal-air battery, and aluminium is in fact one of the more promising substrates for such. In which case, what you've got isn't a "virtual" battery -- able to soak up and release load, but an actual battery, able to soak up and release current as electrical energy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium%E2%80%93air_battery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium%E2%80%93air_battery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal%E2%80%93air_electrochemical_cell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal%E2%80%93air_electrochemic... The fact that the Bloomberg story doesn't allow making heads or tails of this is utterly frustrating. Addendum: I've written Timo, and his editors, citing the problems with the article and discussion here.
dredmorbius 12y ago
I'd really like to see the term "virtual battery" banned. You're either a battery or you're not. If you can store and release energy in the same form you're a battery. If you can't, but can store energy for later use, then you're an energy banking system. Otherwise you're a demand response system. This is a demand response system.

sveme 12y ago

It's really a badly written article about an interesting topic - and I'm not sure what the real story is. Considering the graphic: http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2014-11-26/tech_aluminumgraphic49_630.jpg http://images.bwbx.io/cms/2014-11-26/tech_aluminumgraphic49_... it looks like they are indeed releasing energy back to the grid. Additional article: http://www.aluinfo.de/index.php/gda-news-en/items/trimet-develops-virtual-electricity-storage.html http://www.aluinfo.de/index.php/gda-news-en/items/trimet-dev... It looks more like they are adapting the process to handle energy fluctuations. The current process most likely requires a steady current and they are adapting the process to ramp up during times of cheap energy and throttle it during times of expensive energy. Still no battery, more like a balancer, adaptively throttling energy consumption. Edit More information from a paper abstract [1]: High Frequency Power Modulation - TRIMET Smelters Provide Primary Control Power for Stabilizing the Frequency in the Electricity Grid Scope The strong growth of renewable energy in Germany leads to high prices fluctuations, varying with the availability of these energy resources. To deal with this situation, TRIMET is using the tool “power modulation” since 2008 to compensate these strong price effects. Simultaneously the strong growth of renewable energy sources leads to a need of primary regulation energy for stabilizing the electricity grid at 50 Hz. In this context, TRIMET is the first electricity consumer world wide, which provides primary regulation energy by modulating a consumer. Traditionally this source of energy is only provided by power plants or energy storage plants, e.g. pumped energy storage or stationery batteries. http://www.programmaster.org/PM/PM.nsf/ApprovedAbstracts/281A8D0A5E4E0F0085257A48004DD9DA?OpenDocument http://www.programmaster.org/PM/PM.nsf/ApprovedAbstracts/281... Now were getting closer to the real thing. Edit II [2]: TRIMET Aluminium SE is developing a process that can turn electro- lytic furnaces for the production of primary aluminum in collabora- tion with conventional power plants into energy storage reservoirs for renewable energy. Aluminum has a high energy density. This makes its production energy-intensive and aluminum smelters re- cipients of base-load electricity. Excess energy is stored in the light metal. The principle behind the new process is the grid-commutated operation of the production equipment. To ensure this, the electrolysis cells are modified so that their output can be increased or reduced for several hours, as needed. The ope- rating point is selected in such a way that the output can be raised or lowered by more than 25 percent for hours. This makes it possible to provide enormous storage capacity. Using this method, TRIMET aluminum smelters could provide outputs of up to 130 megawatts with future capacities of up to 6,000 megawatt hours. This corresponds to the daily energy consumption of two million people. The “virtual battery” relies on the improved flexibility of aluminum elec- trolysis. With this method, TRIMET is revolutionizing the basic principle of a manufacturing process that has existed for more than 120 years. An electrolytic furnace is similar to a water container whose walls are made of ice. To ensure that the tank does not melt, the ambient temperature must be kept very low. But it must not reach a temperature that is too cold, or the water in the tank will freeze. Similarly, the temperature of the electrolytic furnace must be harmonized in order to stabilize the fur- nace walls under fluctuating power supply levels. The process developed by TRIMET regulates this balance through the clever use of exhaust heat, a form of thermal insulation that can be adjusted in an innovative way. The process offers significant advantages over other storage systems. At 85 percent, the efficiency factor of the aluminum storage reservoir approaches that of pump storage reservoirs, far higher than those of compressed-air or hydrogen storage reservoirs. what’s more, the system does not require new power lines, since it is integrated into the existing high-voltage grid. [2] http://www.trimet.de/fileadmin/pdf/trimet-at-a-glance-2013.pdf http://www.trimet.de/fileadmin/pdf/trimet-at-a-glance-2013.p...

vilda 12y ago
Nope, they don't release energy as such, just "resell" it. They buy and consume energy when it's cheap, then they sell it at higher price by not using it. That's why they call it "virtual".
dredmorbius 12y ago
The term "virtual battery" in Anderson's article in conjunction with the diagram you show is what's throwing me. It's possible to create a metal-air battery, and aluminium is in fact one of the more promising substrates for such. In which case, what you've got isn't a "virtual" battery -- able to soak up and release load, but an actual battery, able to soak up and release current as electrical energy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium%E2%80%93air_battery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium%E2%80%93air_battery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal%E2%80%93air_electrochemical_cell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal%E2%80%93air_electrochemic... The fact that the Bloomberg story doesn't allow making heads or tails of this is utterly frustrating. Addendum: I've written Timo, and his editors, citing the problems with the article and discussion here.

dredmorbius 12y ago

I'd really like to see the term "virtual battery" banned. You're either a battery or you're not. If you can store and release energy in the same form you're a battery. If you can't, but can store energy for later use, then you're an energy banking system. Otherwise you're a demand response system. This is a demand response system.