Rio Tinto is studying the installation of batteries at its Queensland aluminium smelter in the belief that rapid reductions in the cost of energy storage could pave a way for intermittent renewables to provide the smelter’s enormous and constant electricity needs.

The global boss of Rio’s aluminium division, Jerome Pecresse, toured Rio’s Australasian smelters last week and said there was no reason why batteries could not provide the “firming” power required by smelters when generation from solar and wind ebbs to low levels.