Decarbonization of Electric Arc Furnace Steel Mills, how to Set-up an Effective Allocation of Energy Flows, aiming at Tracking Efficiency and Energy Savings

A decrease in the energy intensity of 1.7 GJ/t by 2030 and 4.1 GJ/t by 2050 is expected from the current 18.9 GJ/t in the steel sector according to the International Energy Agency Roadmap to Iron and Steel. The scope of this work is methodological: it represents the application of energy management in an energy-intensive sector, like the steel production process, which is the first step towards the decarbonization and implementation of ISO 50001 and ISO 14064. The methodology foresees the following three major steps. At first, the manufacturing process is categorized into m different processes, where each process accounts for n equipment. The energy consumption of each equipment (i.e., electrical, thermal, diesel, water, ...) is attributed to each m-th process. Each process is then placed into a k different functional area according to the services it provides. In the second step, the identification of energy-intensive processes has been done based on the ISO 50001 energy management system. In the third step, the energy performance indicators (EnPIs) are identified and compared with the available literature at a global. We applied the methodology to a case study of two steel mills. The energy-saving opportunities (energy and emissions) and economics are proposed as a result of the monitoring system. The novelty of this work is the detailed categorization of the steel manufacturing process, identification of 17 EnPI, as compared with the literature, and finally, we proposed a model for the decarbonization of the steel industry. This model can serve as the first step toward the implementation of ISO 50001 in the sector.