It seems clear that the world will need much more such renewable energy to meet the climate targets established and especially so when hydrogen from electrolyzers becomes more and more a favoured solution.

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Water = Hydrogen + Oxygen = Water

The river Hoån that runs beneath our Hofors facility has since the very beginning been the source of power for steel making. First as mechanical power and then, in 1895, to provide electricity for the electrification of the rolling process - a world first. Now we will use that same river water for another world first, to electrify through hydrogen the large-scale heating of steel before rolling and forging. Jules Verne wrote in 1874 that “the energy of tomorrow is water that has been decomposed by electricity”. That time has now come for Ovako in Hofors, thanks to project funded in collaboration with the Swedish Energy Agency, Volvo Group, Hitachi-ABB Power Grids, H2 Green Steel and Nel Hydrogen.

We will use this innovation to minimize the use of fossil fuels and burn our own-produced hydrogen with oxygen, instead of the propane and oxygen we use today. No new storage facility is required, and the waste heat will be captured and used for district heating as we already do today. The electrolyzer will be the biggest in Sweden and is expected to be completed by the end of 2022. The first 17 MW plant will generate 3,500 cubic meters of fossil-free hydrogen per hour and the full conversion to hydrogen will enable us to reduce our CO2 emissions for steel production by 50 percent from their already low levels. The plan is for local hydrogen production to be installed in all our units where we roll steel by 2030. We hope this initiative will show the way forward for significant CO2 savings both in the steel industry as well as downstream industries that heat steel for hot working.

In fact, the technology has the potential to save CO2 emissions in the order of 300 million tonnes a year, provided there is a sufficient supply of fossil-free electricity. We want to pilot this approach and then share our results and experience with the world. Ultimately, this is a key step in Ovako’s planned progress towards a climate-neutral steel offering.

Fossil-free deliveries

Because Ovako currently uses oxygen in burners and other operations, the overall cost-efficiency of the planned electrolyzer will be very competitive. Furthermore, any excess hydrogen produced comes at a relatively low cost, offset by the oxygen usage at site together with an existing large electrolyzer and district heating infrastructure. This kind of solution could contribute to the development of the hydrogen infrastructure critical to help fuel cells in vehicles become economically viable. With other steel operations using the solution, we could soon establish a network for fueling stations for long-haul trucks – with either no or only limited need to transport hydrogen or store it. This is of significant interest to manufacturers of large vehicles such as AB Volvo.

Lars Stenqvist, Chief Technology Officer of Volvo Group has said: “The transport sector is undergoing a paradigm shift, and green hydrogen will be one of the most important energy vectors in the transport industry for long-haul and heavy freight. Decentralized hydrogen production in the steel industry fits very well with the transport industry’s need for fossil-free fuel. This technological solution is scalable because it can be used by the steel industry in large parts of the world. Working in partnership with other industries to be involved in the entire value chain around our transport solutions is essential.”

We agree with this view and are proud of our collaboration with Volvo. Together we hope we can make fossil-free truck transports a reality as soon as possible. Ovako will certainly be pleased to be an early pioneer in using them to deliver our products to customers across Europe.

Supporting renewable electricity

Ovako is a long standing and important supplier to the wind power industry. Of all the many thousands of wind turbines installed each year, around one third of the rings used for the large wind-bearings are manufactured from Ovako steel, as well as other components. Our clean steel, in the form of large rings, contains very small amounts of the critically sized inclusions that are the enemy of fatigue performance. This is key to enable reliable wind power operations and steady CO2 savings year after year. In fact, one year’s supply of Ovako clean steel rings enables lifetime savings of an estimated 260 million tonnes of CO2.

It is clear that the world will need much more such renewable energy to meet the ambitious climate targets that have been established. This need will only increase when hydrogen from electrolyzers achieves its anticipated growth in popularity. However, introducing a larger share of renewable energy on power grids does come with some important concerns. This is something that is already being experienced with the challenges of maintaining the frequency stability which is critical for the stability and reliability of power grids. Thankfully, the technical solution we are pioneering has a unique ability to be used flexibly, as and when required, to provide the capability to regulate the grid. Therefore, we hope our plans to produce hydrogen by electrolysis will also support more production of renewable energy as fast as possibly

can be achieved. The world needs it, and in Sweden alone there are many very large and important industrial projects that soon will challenge the power grid. Our friends at H2 Green Steel being behind one of them. We look forward to providing part of the solution that will stabilize the future power grid.

Join our upcoming webinar

We would like to remind you about the final in the series of three digital events we have organized to explain the rich opportunities made possible by our three variants of Hybrid Steel, with each capable of being heat treated to four different executions for optimizing different sets of properties. One of the truly exciting and novel aspects of this steel is its surprisingly good resistance against corrosion and hydrogen. We will explain more in the webinar called “Hybrid Steel – Properties relevant for corrosion and hydrogen resistance”, taking place on August 31, 2021, 15.00-16.00 CET. Please click below to accept our invitation to this webcast from our new Group R&D laboratory.

Registration to Ovako´s digital event

Thank you for being a subscriber to Strength of Steel. Please invite any of your colleagues to join and we look forward to continue bringing you interesting aspects of the steel business we all are in together. We are also happy to receive questions and will do our very best to address them in upcoming newsletters. In the next Strength of Steel we will discuss our global collaboration with Nippon Steel Bar and Wire Rod Unit and Sanyo Special Steel. Together we belong to Nippon Steel Group and we are focusing on the five core dimensions for strengthening our customer values. More about this in September. Until then please enjoy summer.

All the best,

Göran Nyström, Group Marketing and Technology
Mathias Tillman, Group Sales
Ovako

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