The hydropower energy management for nickel smelter

Energy Is one of impoertant thing beside raw of material to produce nickel In order to meet energy requirement to produce Nickel through the process of smelting pyro metallurgy, PT. Vale Indonesia operates three hydroelectric power plants: Larona, Balambano and Karebbe. These plants generate 365 megawatts of power that supplies the electricity to operate smelter plant. The presence of hydroelectric plants reduce the need for fuel-based power plants, they are the main initiative energy efficiency program, and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Hydroelectric using water from Larona River which had a relative high annual debit fluctuation and hence it was necessary to retain the excessive water debit in the rainy season to overcome the deficit of the water in the dry season by constructing three cascade reservoir in the downstream of Towuti lake for hydropower operation. A dam stores water in a reservoir, from which water flows through penstock pipes to-generate electricity. The quantity of electricity produced is determined by the volume of water flow and the height from the top of the turbines to the water surface at the base of the dam. The operation of the reservoir was synergized with Hydropower energy demand. The study come with the idea to managing energy production and planning for maintenance Hydro plan unit and Smelterplant unit with dependable flow projection where is on September and october is the best time to shutdown the unit for maintenance rather than still running to respon demand 295 Mw with additional diesel power generation which is most costly. The results show that the proposed technique is capable of producing better results.