Electrical Consumption Flexibility in the Cement Industry

A method for identifying and quantifying the flexibility of electricity demand in a production plant is reported. The plant is equipped with electric machines, product storage silos, distributed generation, and electrical storage systems. The method aims to minimize production costs. To achieve this, the plant is mathematically modeled, and an economic optimization problem is formulated by managing these plant equipment. From this optimal schedule (base schedule), the feasibility of modifying it to sell or buy energy in the electricity balancing regulation markets is evaluated, thus obtaining the so called flexibility schedule. Finally, this method was successfully applied to a real case using data from a Spanish cement production plant.