SSAB has secured €128m ($138.8m) in funding to decarbonise its Luleå steel plant with green hydrogen thanks to European Commission approval.
The direct Swedish grant will be used to fund the installation of an electric arc furnace (EAF) to produce direct reduced iron (DRI) using renewable hydrogen, to help the existing steel plant move away from coal-based production.
Expected to have capacity for 2.5 million tonnes of green slabs per year, SSAB plans to start producing green steel from 2029.
Using hydrogen DRI in steel production can reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by up to 95% compared to traditional steelmaking. In DRI, hydrogen can replace coal or natural gas as a reactant with oxygen in iron ore to produce reduced iron for steel processing.
Read more:Will DRI be key to producing sustainable steel?
Located in northern Sweden, the SSAB steel plant currently produces around two million tonnes of crude steel annually, it…
