The world's first industrially employed plasma system with graphite electrodes for the continuous heating of a tundish was commissioned at the end of March 2001. The system is equipped with 2 graphite electrodes so that a floor electrode is no longer needed. The process data recorded during commissioning give cause for optimism for the future applications of this technology. With an efficiency of 67 %, the system is better than the normal 55 % achieved by the metal torches. In addition, the results show that no carbon pickup takes place and the nitrogen absorption of the melt is far less than 10 ppm and thus well inside the tolerance range of the plant operator.