Stegra, Sunfire suggest that the IAA needs to be reviewed
"Green" steelmaking startup Stegra and electrolysis cell manufacturer Sunfire believe that the EU Law on accelerating industrial production should return to the starting point in order to speed up the process of decarbonizing steel, Kallanish reports.
Discussing the law during a webinar organized this week by the trade organization Hydrogen Europe, Ola Hansen, Director of Public Relations at Stegra, said that the definition of low-carbon gas needs to be revised, as it currently does not meet the target.
"It is sad to say that in the production of flat rolled products and hot-rolled rolls[classification and labeling]it was a complete disaster," Hansen said. "Taking into account the proposed thresholds, all current European production of flat rolled products will be considered low-carbon. All current flat-rolled steel production in China also falls under the category of low-carbon steel and in the United States, too, which means it's not conducive to transition."
"If 100% of current production already corresponds to the low-carbon[definition], why introduce a 25% quota in public procurement? I mean, it doesn't make sense if our production already meets these requirements," he said, calling for more ambitious goals.
His colleague from Sunfire, Christopher Frey, added that the industry needs a "transparent and meaningful" labeling scheme for zero-purity steel in order to create demand for environmentally friendly hydrogen and electrolyzers, as proposed under the leading market concept. "What we heard between the lines is a little alarming. I would agree that we should go back to the starting point and make more sense of it," he said.
Frey also highlighted the "special relationship" between the steel and electric milling industries. "We are customers of steel companies, but obviously we also want the steel industry to stimulate demand for environmentally friendly hydrogen and for our products. … We supply quite a lot of steel for our electrolyzers exclusively from Europe," he said.
According to estimates by Sunfire and her colleagues, the steel industry can potentially meet the demand for electrolysis by about 9 gigawatts with the right infrastructure. However, Frey acknowledges that the steel industry is facing strong competition, which is hampering decarbonization efforts.
Stegra considers the proposed loans for the production of low-carbon steel"as the most promising market more promising than any law on industrial acceleration." Hansen explained that the introduction of quotas for the use of low-carbon