Improving mechanical pulping business potential by operating single layer grinding surfaces on electricity market

Due to climate change, energy systems are penetrated by carbon free renewable energy sources, i.e. mainly solar and wind power. However, their power output is heavily intermittent and does not typically correspond to power consumption, so other means must be utilized to balance the power grid. Traditionally, the power balance has been conducted by flexible conventional condensing power plants but the new price situation makes this generation economically unprofitable. One alternative is demand response, where load is shifted from one time instant to another. New single layer grinding surfaces enable demand response due to the significant production increase of the grinders. As the pulp lines already include pulp towers and pulp can be stored 8 hours without quality decrease, the increased production capacity can be utilized as demand response. The investment price of this demand response capacity is very low compared to investment in traditional peak power production capacity. By operating this demand response capacity on the hourly priced Day-Ahead market the payback time of the investment is slightly under 2 years, though not attractive at the moment but more valuable electricity markets could be participated due to the fast loading response and the natural start-stop operation of the grinders.