Austrian steelmaker voestalpine has joined Siemens and utility Verbund for the project “H2Future” to test the viability of using so-called “green hydrogen” as a fuel in the steelmaking process.
The partners this week signed for the construction of one of the largest such demonstration plants in the world at the voestalpine site in Linz, according to Kallanish Energy’s sister publication, Kallanish Steel.
The facility’s generated hydrogen will be fed directly into the internal gas network, allowing the testing of the use of hydrogen in various process stages of steel production. The technology supplier for the proton exchange membrane electrolyser is Siemens.
Verbund, the project coordinator, will provide electricity from renewable energy sources and is responsible for development of grid-relevant services.
Other partners in the project are the research institution ECN from the Netherlands, the Austrian transmission system operator Austrian Power Grid (APG), and Austrian researcher K1-MET.
The project is the first concrete undertaking within a general cooperation framework announced by voestalpine and Verbund last year, as previously reported.
The European Commission, through its unit Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU), has allocated about €12 million ($12.8 million) in funding from the EU Horizon 2020 program for implementing this project.
The total project volume amounts to roughly €18 million ($19.20 million), with the three partners sharing the balance of €6 million ($6.40 million) equally over the course of 4-1/2 years.
voestalpine emphasizes it’s striving for the replacement of coal through the use of alternative energy sources over the next two decades by bridging technologies. This strategy is primarily based on natural gas, as in the new reduction facility in Corpus Christi, Texas.
With the construction of the Linz pilot plant for the production of CO2-neutral hydrogen “we are taking a further step towards the long-term realization of the technology transformation in the steel industry,” group CEO Wolfgang Eder said.
