BO X 11 TRIMET virtual battery pilot A 36 million investment by TRIMET into a showcase pilot plant is demonstrating this potential TRIMET Aluminium allows one of its potrooms in its Essen plant to operate as an energy storage or virtual battery Its output can vary by 25 percent based on a nominal load of 90 MW providing a virtual storage capacity of appro ximately 2 100 megawatt hours MWh This is comparable to a mediumsized pumpedstorage power plant By balancing grid fuctuations this powerstoring capability allows variable renewable energy sources including wind and solar energy to be fed into the German power grid T o ensure fe xible control of its electrolysis cells TRIMET Aluminium has developed a process technology that maintains a constant energy balance within the cell even with a fuctuating energy supply Fully implemented the three TRIMET smelters in Germany located in North Rhine W est phalia and Hamburg could increase the country s pumped storage capacity currently 40 gigawatt hours G Wh by nearly 40 percent 227 Distributed ledger technology block chain to improve traceability Distributed ledger technologies such as block chain might fnd their way into metals produc tion specifcally with the goal to improve traceability and hence recovery of metals during the production and lifecycle In theory this technology would allow the tracking of metals during their production process their application in intermediate and fnal products and at the scrapping phase 226 Distributed ledger technology can also be an instrument that allows adding verifed environmental performance indicators information to metals used in the value chain This would allow customers of nonferrous metals to have verifed and reliable information on e g the GHG intensity of the metals used It can hence become a valuable instrument in case performance standards are introduced on the materials used in fnal products e g cars Such robust and verifable standards might also allow the introduction of for e xample a green premium at metals e x changes 6 10 Sector coupling demand response and waste heat usage outside of nonferrous metals production Finally there are important actions that could be further tak en by nonferrous metals pro ducers that do not impact the direct or indirect emissions of metals production but assist other sectors to reduce energy use andor GHG emissions Demand response ancillary grid services Many electrointensive metals producers already participate in ancillary services to the pow er grid e g grid stabilisation and peak attenuation by e g allowing for temporary interrup tion of power supply or participation in demand response Competitive services are already being provided in countries including France Belgium Netherlands and Germany With high er levels of variable renewable energy to be produced in the EU it is e xpected that these ancillary mark ets will become more important Nonferrous metal production has a signifcant potential to ofer higher levels of demand response to the European power mark et This is in particular the case for primary aluminium zinc and copper production A k ey enabling technology to apply demand response on large scale is automated process management systems Ne xt to the technology challenge of ensuring that processes k eep running smoothly under reduced loads the main issue is that viable business models are created for nonferrous metals producers to allow for maximum participation in ancillary mark ets and are not penal ised via T SO grid fees if their load profle becomes more variable 226 This technology is being pioneered in steel production through the S teelT race platform S teelT race is a block chain based platform for all companies from steel production to installer to end client that enables traceability of steel quality via the frst true digital certifcate The S teelT race platform enables data storage in an unchangeable format e x change of ownership of certifcate instead of sending copies traceable ownership to the original source and data storage so that machines can understand the certifcates content MET ALS IN A CLIMA TE NEUTRAL EUROPE A 2050 BL UEPRINT 60