New Assisted Gauging System: Another Step to Reduce Variation on Low ACD Operation

Most recent primary aluminium smelting technologies requires a lot of energy (from 12.8 to 14,5 kWh/t Al). Despite the progress made over the past decades, Alouette has always operated in an energy constrain mode ever since its start-up in 1992. Considering the limited amount of energy available and its vision of sustainability, Alouette has been exploring uncharted territories to make the cell technology (Aluminium Pechiney) more ‘efficient’ by increasing cell productivity while reducing energy consumption. As a result, the smelter has been able to produce more aluminium with its power limitation. Now facing the lower limit of the Anode-Cathode Distance (ACD) of the technology, this has brought additional operational challenges. To overcome this challenging situation, Alouette has developed an assisted anode gauging system on Pot Tending Machines (PTM) coupled with an improved anode setting precision method. This results in an improved cell performance by having a positive impact on Key Performances Indicators (KPI).