Simulation-Based Energy Reduction for a Lead-Acid Battery Production with Stochastic Maturation and Drying Processes

The reduction of carbon dioxide (CO
2
) emissions is a major goal of the European Union and energy storage is a core aspect to reach this goal. However, the production of lead-acid batteries is very energy consuming. Based on a case company production system and data, we develop a simulation model for the most energy-intensive lead-acid battery production steps, i.e., ripening and drying of lead plates. As both processes have some non-controllable stochastic aspects, the planned process times for both steps are a crucial factor for overall energy consumption. Too low or too high planned process times either lead to energy wasting for re-warm-up or to unnecessary energy consumption during processing. Simulation results reveal a significant energy reduction potential when optimizing planned process times, which increases when process uncertainty decreases. In addition, also the post-maturation and post-drying times are found to have a high influence on overall energy consumption.