India’s Steel Ministry is working on the country’s first-ever Green Steel Mission, even as it attempts to define these new metal offerings that would ideally be manufactured using low-carbon energy sources or have low-embedded carbon emissions. Parallelly, the Ministry has also carried out a review in order to speed up work on the three approved pilot projects that would use hydrogen as a part of the steel-making process.

Green steel today has no definition or pre-defined criteria that is universally accepted. But is a loose term thrown in for the metal that is made from low carbon energy sources, like renewable energy or electric arc furnace.

“Right now there is no taxonomy or etymology. The focus would be get that definition in place first. And by this year’s end, the Green Steel Mission – which we are working on – should be ready,” a senior official told businessline.

Another official in the know said, ideally the Ministry would look to define green steel in “percentage terms” based on a steel plant’s emission intensity. The benchmark emission set by Ministry is 2.2 tonne of carbon di oxide (CO2) emitted, per tonne of crude steel produced. Based on the emission levels, the Ministry could explore grading of “green steel”.

A public procurement policy for green steel, which supposedly would come at a higher cost, has been under – deliberation by the Ministry for sometime.

Push for Pilot Projects

As part of National Green Hydrogen Mission, three pilot projects for use of Hydrogen in steel production has been approved with a financial support of ₹347 crore.

Proposals were invited for three components that included, producing DRI using 100 per cent hydrogen through vertical shaft, use of hydrogen in blast furnace to reduce coal or coke consumption and injection of hydrogen in vertical shaft based DRI making unit.

The three companies selected included Matrix Gas and Renewable Ltd (consortium members include Gensol Engineering Ltd, IIT -Bhubaneswar, Metsol AB, Sweden) with pilot plant capacity 50 ton-per-day (TPD); Steel Authority of India Ltd (Ranchi) with plant capacity 3200 TPD and the third being a consortium led by Simplex Castings Ltd ( other consortium members include BSBK Pvt Ltd, Ten Eight Investment, IIT Bhilai) with pilot plant capacity 40 TPD.

“We had a meeting with these companies and a review was carried out. Ideally work of these projects should start November-end,” the official said. These pilot projects are likely to be commissioned in next 3 years.

In a recent stock market notification, Simplex Castings said, its 40 TPD plant is estimated to cost ₹230 crore with 70 per cent of the funding ( ₹161 crore) being provided by government support. “It will serve as a model for scalable, sustainable steel production, supporting India’s transition to a green economy,” it said to the bourses.

Related Topics