Volume 5: Innovative Solutions for Energy Transitions: Part IV

Power Modulation Modeling of Aluminum Reduction Cells for Renewable Energy Integration Gustavo Ospina-Aldana, Mohamed I. Hassan Ali, Sgouris Sgouridis, Ali Bouabid

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a thermodynamic model to determine the extended operating window of an aluminum cell to enable power modulation. The integration of renewable energy to aluminum production needs to overcome the challenge of narrow operating windows of aluminum cells. The proposed model takes an industrial aluminum cell as a case study to demonstrate how to build the operating window, constrained by the cell design technical limitations. The extended operating window can also be used to estimate the heat exchanger heat rate requirements to enable an aluminum cell to operate under a wide power modulation.

Keywords aluminum production, energy transition, power modulation, renewable energy