€3.5 billion 'green steel' project to go ahead

4th November 2022

€3.5 billion “inexperienced metal” mission to go forward

A Swedish firm has secured funding to construct the primary large-scale hydrogen-based metal plant, which may take away 95% of CO2 emissions from the discount course of.

Laptop rendering of the primary large-scale, hydrogen-based inexperienced metal plant, anticipated to be operational in 2025. Credit score: H2 Inexperienced Metal

Metal manufacturing is carbon intensive. Iron ore should be heated and melted at very excessive temperatures in furnaces, which requires massive quantities of vitality. One ton of crude metal ends in 1.83 tons of CO2, whereas the business accounts for an estimated 7% to 9% of world CO2 emissions.

H2 Inexperienced Metal, based in 2020, is hoping to alter that. Its ambition is to speed up the decarbonisation of the metal business, utilizing a brand new course of based mostly on inexperienced hydrogen.

In conventional metal making, discount of iron ore is achieved by heating it along with coal, utilizing a chemical response that separates oxygen from the iron, forming and releasing CO2. The brand new methodology will contain inexperienced hydrogen reacting with iron ore equally to carbon, ensuing within the extraction of oxygen. Nonetheless, as an alternative of making CO2, the primary by-product will now be H2O.

The inexperienced hydrogen is produced by decomposing water into hydrogen and oxygen in a course of generally known as electrolysis. H2 Inexperienced Metal is growing what it describes as “giga-scale electrolysis”, powered by fossil-free electrical energy, as an built-in a part of its manufacturing website.

The following steps embody an electrical arc furnace (once more utilizing fossil-free electrical energy), to create a homogenous soften of liquid metal. That is adopted by “steady casting and rolling” to maintain the metal heat on its approach to completed product, decreasing vitality consumption by 70% and changing pure fuel typically used within the conventional course of.

As illustrated above, inexperienced metal crops may also maximise circularity. Wasted warmth, for instance, can be despatched to the district heating channels of Luleå-Boden, recycled scrap from clients can be charged into the electrical arc furnace, and slag can be processed into merchandise for use in different industries.

Final week, the corporate introduced help from main European monetary establishments – together with the business banks BNP Paribas, ING, Societe Generale, and UniCredit, in addition to the European Funding Financial institution, and the Swedish Nationwide Debt Workplace – for the €3.5 billion (US$3.5 billion) it wants. By means of a mix of debt and credit score ensures, funding can be offered for building of the world’s first large-scale, hydrogen-based inexperienced metal plant, to be situated in Boden, Northern Sweden.

“These sturdy commitments to our debt financing present how far we now have come on our journey, in a really quick time,” stated Henrik Henriksson, CEO. “We’re impressed by the collaborative strategy of those establishments and the management they’re displaying in financing the transition. The help from the European Funding Financial institution, Swedish Nationwide Debt Workplace and among the world’s main export credit score businesses and banks, not solely underlines our enterprise case and debt carrying capability, but in addition highlights the willingness to help initiatives that can assist fulfil the goal of the Paris Settlement.”

The location is scheduled to start out manufacturing in late 2025. The corporate has already pre-sold about 60% of its preliminary volumes to a variety of European clients in a broad vary of sectors. Following a gradual ramp up, H2 Inexperienced Metal expects to convey 5 million tonnes of high-quality metal to the market by 2030.