Power Management of a Continuous Mining Process

This paper dwells upon optimizing the power consumption of production processes, including continuous operations; it also describes a management system for unit sets that implements the proposed algorithms. The system is to manipulate the load of an industrial enterprise and to cut the power consumption of its processes at specific timeframes without ceasing the continuous operations or reducing the output. If a company's power supply system can manage its load curve without compromising the performance, it will not only improve the energy efficiency of the enterprise itself, but also enhance the utilization of generating sets and of the infrastructures provided by the regional grids. This paper discusses various solutions for the reduction of consumer loads; it also analyzes the types and characteristics of controlled processes and operations. The paper defines the objective function and the process constraints. It also presents the experimental results obtained at a lime and limestone crushing facility of a mining company.