I will say, from my time being a process engineer in metals:
-Everything runs 24/7 cuz the equipment is so expensive and there’s always too much demand
-furnaces are gas, probably too hot to reach in a reasonable space with electricity
Totally agree with storing temperature/water locally as a battery, especially at home levels
I believe the electric funaces are called "Arc furnaces" and you heat by making electricy jump between conductors.
One of the advantages over blust furnaces is that production can be varied more easily as there isn’t a whole lot of ancillary parts of the furnance which all need to get up to temperature. So only running them on excess energy might be more practical.
Oh I wasn’t even thinking of it, but for secondary in iron that is probably perfect. Still not gonna be able to continuously anneal or anything due to the massive amount of thermal mass needed, but for the “spot” stuff that sounds perfect
I also have no idea about titanium production and it could easily be useful there
