Minimum Emissions Configuration of a Green Energy–Steel System: An Analytical Model

Salvatore Digiesi, Giovanni Mummolo and Micaela Vitti
Additional contact information
Salvatore Digiesi: Department of Mechanics, Mathematics and Management, Polytechnic University of Bari, 70125 Bari, Italy
Giovanni Mummolo: Ionic Department in Legal and Economic System of Mediterranean: Society, Environment, Culture, Università Degli Studi Di Bari Aldo Moro, 70121 Bari, Italy
Micaela Vitti: Department of Mechanics, Mathematics and Management, Polytechnic University of Bari, 70125 Bari, Italy

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 9, 1-21

Abstract: The need to significantly reduce emissions from the steelmaking sector requires effective and ready-to-use technical solutions. With this aim, different decarbonization strategies have been investigated by both researchers and practitioners. To this concern, the most promising pathway is represented by the replacement of natural gas with pure hydrogen in the direct reduced iron (DRI) production process to feed an electric arc furnace (EAF). This solution allows to significantly reduce direct emissions of carbon dioxide from the DRI process but requires a significant amount of electricity to power electrolyzers adopted to produce hydrogen. The adoption of renewable electricity sources (green hydrogen) would reduce emissions by 95–100% compared to the blast furnace–basic oxygen furnace (BF–BOF) route. In this work, an analytical model for the identification of the minimum emission configuration of a green energy–steel system consisting of a secondary route supported by a DRI production process and a renewable energy conversion system is proposed. In the model, both technological features of the hydrogen steel plant and renewable energy production potential of the site where it is to be located are considered. Compared to previous studies, the novelty of this work consists of the joint modeling of a renewable energy system and a steel plant. This allows to optimize the overall system from an environmental point of view, considering the availability of green hydrogen as an inherent part of the model. Numerical experiments proved the effectiveness of the model proposed in evaluating the suitability of using green hydrogen in the steelmaking process. Depending on the characteristics of the site and the renewable energy conversion system adopted, decreases in emissions ranging from 60% to 91%, compared to the BF–BOF route, were observed for the green energy–steel system considered It was found that the environmental benefit of using hydrogen in the secondary route is strictly related to the national energy mix and to the electrolyzers’ technology. Depending on the reference context, it was found that there exists a maximum value of the emission factor from the national electricity grid below which is environmentally convenient to produce DRI by using only hydrogen. It was moreover found that the lower the electricity consumption of the electrolyzer, the higher the value assumed by the emission factor from the electricity grid, which makes the use of hydrogen convenient.

Keywords: green steel; green hydrogen; renewable energy; analytical model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/9/3324/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/9/3324/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2022:i:9:p:3324-:d:807741

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().