Flexible process operation for electrified chemical plants

The electrification of production processes is one of the key steps to reduce the CO2 footprint of the chemical industry, thus exploiting the increase of the generation of electric power from renewable sources. Power from renewables is subject to large fluctuations. This implies the need to adapt the operation of the processing plants to the availability of power from renewables to fully exploit the potential to reduce the CO2 footprint. This requires flexibility of the design and the application of demand -response techniques where the demand of the plants is adapted to the supply. This also contributes to the stabilization of the power grids and to the reduction of cost. In this article, we review demand-response techniques to operate plants dynamically in view of the availability and the price of electric power. Such adaptation requires the forecasting of the generation from renewables and of the price of electric power.