Decarbonizing Indian Steel

Abstract

India is the second largest steel producer in the world around 120 MT of crude steel in 2021-2022. The National Steel Policy envisages increasing crude steel capacity to 300 MT by 2030-2031. Steel is an essential sector for developing economy like India. On the other hand, this is one of the most energy intensive and polluting sectors. Steel production consumes around 20% of global industrial energy and contributes 7% CHG (2.6 Gt CO₂/yr.). India is signatory to the UNFCCC Paris agreement whose goal is to keep the rise in mean global temperature well below 2^oC above pre-industrial level. India Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) is pledged to (a) to reduce emission intensity to its GDP by 33-35 % by 2030 from the 2005 level and (b) to achieve about 40% cumulative electric power installed capacity from renewable source. The high level of energy consumption and CHG emission of steel production is largely driven by primary BF-BOF route which uses carbon as the iron ore reductant and accounts for approximately 70% of total production and only 5% is produced by Directly Reducing Iron (DRI) followed by refinement in Electric Arc Furnace (EAF). Switching to 100% H₂ will mitigate CO₂ emission.