On the Potential of Electrified Supply Chains to Provide Long Duration Demand Flexibility

Demand flexibility can offset some of the variability introduced on the supply-side by variable renewable generation. However, most efforts (e.g. control of residential vehicle charging) focus on short durations -- typically on the scale of minutes to hours. This paper investigates whether a fully electrified supply chain (transport and manufacturing) could provide demand flexibility over longer durations, exploiting the latency that typically exists between the processing of raw material to the delivery of finished product. Using a case study of the cement industry along the East Coast of the United States, we demonstrate that electrified supply chains could shift gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity demand for durations of more than a week, largely following wind power variability. Furthermore, we show that this occurs using low levels of carbon taxing (below $50/tn), at which battery storage is not economically viable. A sensitivity analysis shows potential to provide flexibility in all considered cost scenarios, although where the flexibility comes from can change (e.g. transport vs manufacturing). We show that today's cost of electrified heavy goods vehicles are the most significant parameter -- with substantially lower costs yielding a more demand-flexible supply chain.