Austria may have to increase its renewable energy production by 50 percent to meet the demand of steel producers seeking to replace fossil fuels with hydrogen.
This conclusion was reached during a panel discussion this week by the country's largest hydropower supplier, Verbund AG, which is examining the impact of global warming containment policies on electricity and carbon markets.
Verbund AG estimates that producing hydrogen in the amount needed to reduce industrial emissions could require an additional 30 terawatt hours of renewable electricity per year, about 20 times the capacity of the world's largest offshore wind farm.
“We have the resources and the technology,” said Wolfgang Ansengruber, CEO of Verbund AG, at a briefing in Fuschl, Austria. “Now we must realize that it is cheaper to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions than to pay fines for them.”
Combustion of hydrogen could replace coal and coke in smelters, which currently produce about 1.7 tons of carbon dioxide for every ton of steel produced. According to the World Steel Association, this sector accounts for up to 9 percent of global carbon emissions.
According to Katharina Beumelburg, senior vice president of gas and energy division of Siemens AG, new powerful power electrolysis plants are needed to produce hydrogen.
Siemens and Verbund are jointly developing Europe's largest electrolysis cell at the Voestalpine steel mill in Linz, Austria. By the end of the year, the 6MW unit plans to start feeding hydrogen to blast furnaces, used to remove oxygen from iron ore.
According to analysts, hydrogen technology will be able to compete with existing coal-fired plants by 2030.
