Energy efficiency, heat recovery in steel production; reheating furnace, EAF; ORC
Abstract :
[en] Steel industry is a highly intensive energy consumer. The energy used by the studied electric steelmaking plant could
supply 25,000 households with thermal energy and 100,000 households with electrical energy. Increasing the energy
efficiency of a steel plant will not only have impact in the reduction of greenhouse emissions but also in an increase of
the competitiveness of the plant.
A Luxembourgish steel plant is studied in detail and several options for energy savings are identified. Promising energy
efficiency gains can be achieved by the optimization of the electric arc furnace and the reheating furnaces and by the
improvement of the logistics between the continuous casting and the reheating furnace. The possibilities of energy
recovery for heating purposes and for the generation of electricity with ORC- (Organic Rankine Cycle) or KALINAtechnologies
are studied. In addition there is the opportunity to deliver hot water to a near district-heating system using
otherwise lost energy and creating regional synergies. Nevertheless there is a need to develop a comprehensive and
integrative approach to find a good overall solution instead of treating each step separately. The University of
Luxembourg in collaboration with a Luxembourgish steel plant is developing a methodology to assess the technical,
economical and environmental aspects of each solution.
The objective is to assist in the decision-making in the company’s energy efficiency strategy and to perform a
comparative analysis of the different solutions in order to propose an optimized plant, based on its feasibility due to
local restrictions and different energy price scenarios. This ideal plant will be composed of individual elements, which
proved their effectiveness in different real plants, so that the approach stays applied
