Construction of the second block of the Billy-Berclau Gigafactory (affectionately known as BBD2) is proceeding apace. The first two mixing rooms are still being fitted out. In the coating area, alongside the cathode furnace lines, a walkway has been built to support the huge pipes that make up NMP's evaporation system.

It was in this same sector that a symbolic step was taken at the end of April, when the installed machines were switched on. Following a rigorous protocol and a series of checks, the power supply to the equipment in the two cathode-side coating rooms and the oven line was switched on, from the low-voltage switchboard via the busbars to the isolating switches.

Now it's time for the tests, adjustments and final validations before operation. The first stage in this long testing phase: the first uncoated aluminium strip passed through the machines on the cathode side at the beginning of May. The installation was started up and operated under real conditions: ‘We carried out the first dynamic tests on the machine. We loaded the strip and ran it along the entire line. We set it in motion’, explains Renaud Gayraud-Vaissières, chemicals manufacturing manager at BBD2.

Various tests will continue, and speeds will increase. The equipment will be working for several weeks on a number of parameters, such as the alignment of the ovens and rollers on the various machines, for example. Technological developments in the machines are also taken into account by the plant operators. 

Tensioning of the equipment continued at the anode coating plant. It also took place at the anode and cathode calender in mid-May. Several weeks of tests and adjustments will be necessary before strips loaded with inks produced in the first block can be introduced, until the BBD2 mixing rooms are commissioned.