Capacity of Cement Mills
The cement mills on a cement plant are usually sized for a clinker consumption considerably greater than the output of the plant's kilns. This is for two reasons:
- The mills are sized to cope with peaks in market demand for cement. In temperate countries, the summer demand for cement is usually much higher than that in winter. Excess clinker produced in winter goes into storage in readiness for summer demand peaks. For this reason, plants with highly seasonal demand usually have very large clinker stores.
- Cement milling is the largest user of electric power on a cement plant, and because they can easily be started and stopped, it often pays to operate cement mills only during "off-peak" periods when cheaper power is available. This is also favourable for electricity producers, who can negotiate power prices with major users in order to balance their generating capacity over 24 hours. More sophisticated arrangements such as "power shedding" are often employed. This consists of the cement manufacturer shutting down the plant at short notice when the power supplier expects a critical demand peak, in return for favourable prices. Clearly, plenty of excess cement milling capacity is needed in order to "catch up" after such interruptions.
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