The Swedish start-up H2 Green Steel, which is currently building a hydrogen metallurgy plant in Sweden, plans to implement four more similar projects in the USA (Texas), Canada (Quebec ), Brazil and Portugal. This was announced at the World Hydrogen Summit in Rotterdam by Kaisa Rittberg-Wahlgren, Vice President of Growth and Hydrogen Business.
According to her, the company has been looking for suitable locations for two years. So far, none of these projects have reached the feasibility stage.
However, customers in Western countries are willing to pay for premium green steel produced with virtually no carbon dioxide emissions.
Hence, hydrogen metallurgy. has prospects for development. Currently, H2 Green Steel is building a production complex in northern Sweden. It will be equipped with electrolyzers with a capacity of 750 MW, which will receive renewable energy from hydroelectric power stations and wind farms.
The volume of production of "green" of hydrogen will be 100,000 tons per year. Iron reduced by hydrogen will be used to smelt steel. The amount of investments in this project amounts to 6.5 billion euros.
The company expects to start production as early as 2026 and reach the planned volume of steel production in the amount of 5 million tons per year in 2030. As noted Kaisa Rittberg-Wahlgren, the successful implementation of hydrogen metallurgy projects requires an uninterrupted supply of cheap renewable energy.
Therefore, most European countries are not suitable for locating enterprises of this profile.
In her opinion, it is necessary to produce on-site iron, regenerated with hydrogen, and only then take it to European metallurgical plants.