Abstract — Flexible solutions that help mitigate imbalances between supply and demand are an increasingly essential tool to increase the resilience of today’s electricity grids. Demand side flexibility, in which industrial users of electricity increase or decrease their consumption based on the grid’s balancing needs, offers a potentially efficient grid stabilization solution. The energy intensive heating processes in cement manufacturing, however, have previously been considered unsuited to demand side flexibility services, as the heat source is neither electrified nor interruptible, and therefore unable to vary its load on demand.
This paper presents recent progress to overcome these barriers and unlock cement’s potential as an energy flexible load balancing service. Indirect heating is shown to enable the electrification of the calcination process. Further advances in indirect heating technology demonstrate the potential to create hybrid-fuelled solutions that may dynamically use a combination of electricity and the combustion of conventional or alternative fuels in response to varying market conditions. Two potential benefits to cement producers are explored: 1) Enabling responsive switching to lowest cost energy inputs, and 2) generating new revenues through the provision of demand-side flexibility, in which a plant may decrease or increase its load at the grid’s request, without impacting production.
