Building strong partnerships
The project is made in partnership with key players in Swedish and Nordic industry such as Volvo Group, Hitachi Energy, H2 Green Steel and Nel Hydrogen. They are supplying Ovako with different components and technical solutions for the plant. The plan is to use local hydrogen production in all Ovako’s units where steel is rolled by 2030, provided there is a good supply of fossil-free electricity.
But why hydrogen?
Steelmaking requires intense heat at three stages in production: melting, hot-forming and heat treatment. We have already converted our melt shops and heat treatment furnaces to zero-emission electricity.
That only leaves the heating furnaces for hot forming processes such as rolling or forging, which operate at 1200 °C. Today’s technology can only achieve this by burning fuel and converting them to hydrogen is the best way to cut emissions for now.
Therefore, producing hydrogen using the alkaline electrolysis process is an indirectly way to electrify the heating furnaces and tackle this area of CO2 emissions.