Demand Side Management of a Run-of-Mine Ore

Increasing electricity costs coupled with lower prices for some metals such as platinum group metals, require a reevaluation of the operation of grinding processes. Demand side management (DSM) has received increasing attention in the field of industrial control as an opportunity to reduce operating costs. DSM through grinding mill power load shifting is presented in this paper using model predictive control and a real-time optimizer. Simulation results indicate that mill power load shifting can potentially achieve cost reductions of $9.90/kg of unrefined product when applied to a run-of-mine (ROM) ore milling circuit processing platinum bearing ore. DSM is however still not economically feasible when there is a demand to continuously run the milling circuit at maximum throughput.