As of June 2023, 6, more than 30 steel companies have completed or are implementing ultra-low emission transformation of about 270 million tons of crude steel production capacity. At present, the cumulative investment in ultra-low emission transformation of the steel industry has exceeded 7 billion yuan. In the whole industry, 6 parent process enterprises and 2000 short process enterprises have successfully created heavy pollution weather performance rating A enterprises.
"Energy conservation and emission reduction in the steel industry is a real work that needs to be continuously promoted in a solid manner." He Wenbo, secretary of the party committee and executive chairman of the China Iron and Steel Association, recently said that through the joint efforts of all parties, the green development of China's steel industry will definitely be able to go better and better.
The ultra-low emission retrofit has achieved remarkable results
China is the world's largest producer and consumer of steel, and the steel industry has the important task of promoting green and low-carbon development.
From the current situation of air pollutant emissions, in 2020, the corresponding proportions of nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and sulfur dioxide emissions in China's ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry in the national industrial sources were 22.3%, 12.1% and 16.4%, respectively.
From the current situation of carbon emissions, China's steel industry accounts for about 15% of the national total, which is the largest carbon emission industry among the 31 categories of manufacturing.
From the current situation of energy consumption, in recent years, the energy efficiency level of China's steel industry has continued to improve, the comprehensive energy consumption of tons of steel has decreased year by year, and the energy consumption of major production processes has gradually decreased, which is comprehensively promoting energy conservation and carbon reduction.
Recently, the 2023 (<>th) Steel Industry Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction Forum with the theme of "Extreme Energy Efficiency, Pollution Reduction and Carbon Reduction" was held in Beijing. "The task of the steel industry is transformation and upgrading, and green and low-carbon is the direction of transformation, but green and low-carbon is not an important work of the industry, but a system engineering covering all fields and running through the whole process." He Wenbo emphasized.
At present, the three major transformation projects being implemented by the steel industry are all reflecting the theme of green and low-carbon. Capacity replacement is to optimize the spatial layout and process layout of the whole steel industry, and this process itself is to realize the high-end, intelligent and green steel industry. Ultra-low emissions and extreme energy efficiency are themselves aimed at green and low-carbon goals.
The air pollutant emission of the iron and steel industry has the characteristics of long production process, many pollutant discharge nodes, large differences in emission conditions, and many types of pollution factors. China's steel industry has achieved remarkable results in air governance by promoting ultra-low emission transformation, implementing differentiated environmental protection control and refined environmental protection management.
As of June 2023, 6, more than 30 enterprises across the country have completed or are implementing ultra-low emission transformation of about 270 million tons of crude steel production capacity; 7 steel enterprises have completed the whole process of ultra-low emission transformation with 6 million tons of crude steel capacity and made public; 62 have completed some ultra-low emission transformation and publicized. China's key statistics steel enterprises air pollutant emission intensity has basically been lower than international advanced steel enterprises.
"Air pollution control has provided effective assistance to the steel industry to improve quality and efficiency." Liu Bingjiang, chief engineer of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, spoke with data: compared with steel companies that do not achieve ultra-low emissions, the profit margin of steel companies that achieve ultra-low emissions is at least 1 percentage point higher.
Summarizing the experience of green and high-quality transformation of the steel industry in the past 10 years, it can be summarized into the four words of "supporting the good and eliminating the inferior", and this policy will continue. Liu Bingjiang said that the current air pollution situation is still grim, the risk of disguised new production capacity still exists, structural problems have not been fundamentally solved, and the contradiction between supply and demand balance is prominent, and the differentiation of green development levels between enterprises has intensified. The task of reducing pollution and carbon emissions and green and high-quality transformation of China's steel industry is still arduous. The whole industry should maintain strategic concentration, continue to promote the green and high-quality development of the steel industry, and focus on four "strengthening": strengthen the achievements of reform and continue to consolidate the achievements of supply-side structural reform; Strengthen the determination of high-quality ultra-low emission transformation and promote synergy in pollution reduction and carbon reduction; Strengthen the standardized operation and management of enterprises; Strengthen the demonstration and application of common technologies for pollution reduction and carbon reduction.
Strive for extreme energy efficiency
Improving energy efficiency throughout the process is a current priority for the steel industry to reduce carbon emissions. Ding Zhijun, deputy director of the Department of Energy Conservation and Comprehensive Utilization of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology attaches great importance to energy conservation and green and low-carbon transformation in key industries such as steel, always adheres to the priority of energy conservation, regards energy conservation and efficiency improvement as the most direct, economical and effective carbon reduction measure, and accelerates high-quality development.
The "Several Opinions on Strict Energy Efficiency Constraints to Promote Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction in Key Areas" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments pointed out that by 2025, through the implementation of energy conservation and carbon reduction actions, the proportion of production capacity of key industries such as steel and data centers reaching the benchmark level will exceed 30%, the overall energy efficiency level of the industry will be significantly improved, the carbon emission intensity will be significantly reduced, and the green and low-carbon development capacity will be significantly enhanced.
"At present, the proportion of main processes in the steel industry that has reached the benchmark value of energy efficiency is still far from the policy requirement of 'the proportion of production capacity reaching the benchmark level of energy efficiency by 2025 exceeds 30%'." Fan Tiejun, president of the Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute, pointed out that in 2022, due to the decline in steel demand and the overall capacity utilization rate, the comprehensive energy consumption of tons of steel increased slightly year-on-year. From the current stage, China's steel industry has a large total energy consumption, and the energy consumption structure is coal-oriented, and the pressure of energy transition is greater than that of other industries.
At the end of 2022, the "Three-Year Action Plan for Energy Efficiency Benchmarking" of the steel industry was officially launched, and the Extreme Energy Efficiency Project entered the substantive implementation stage. The cultivation of the "Dual Carbon Best Practice Energy Efficiency Benchmarking Demonstration Plant" carried out by the China Iron and Steel Association will strive to achieve the level of energy efficiency benchmark by 2023 million tons to 0 million tons in 8, 1 million tons to 0 million tons in 2024, and 1 million tons to 5 million tons in 2.
21 steel enterprises, including Shougang Qiangang Company and Jingtang Company, were selected as the first batch of cultivation enterprises of the "Dual Carbon Best Practice Energy Efficiency Benchmarking Demonstration Plant". "We regard the construction of an extremely energy-efficient operation system as a strategic starting point to promote the realization of the 'dual carbon' goal." Liu Jianhui, general manager of Shougang Co., Ltd., said that on June 6 this year, the kick-off meeting of Shougang Co., Ltd. Extreme Energy Efficiency Improvement Project was held, and in cooperation with the Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute, the "Energy Efficiency Benchmarking Cultivation Action Plan" and "Energy Efficiency Improvement Three-Year Action Plan" will be formed around the four directions of structural energy saving, technical energy saving, management energy saving and system energy saving, and strive to build Shougang Co., Ltd. into the first batch of full-process energy efficiency benchmarking demonstration enterprises in China.
Ding Zhijun revealed that in the next step, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will continue to implement the Action Plan for Industrial Energy Efficiency Improvement, focusing on three aspects of energy conservation and energy efficiency improvement in the steel industry: first, take the promotion and application of advanced energy-saving technologies as the starting point, release a catalog of energy-saving and carbon-reduction technical equipment in the field of industry and information technology, and promote technological energy conservation; The second is to strengthen energy efficiency standards and meet standards as the key, continue to carry out the construction of energy efficiency "leader" enterprises and green factories, and promote management energy conservation; The third is to accelerate the construction of industrial green microgrids, improve the level of electrification of industrial energy consumption, and promote structural energy conservation.
Actively and steadily promote "dual carbon"
The steel industry is a key area and responsible entity for achieving the goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. Affected by energy resource endowments, China's steel industry has a high carbon energy structure, and has the characteristics of large output, large number of enterprises, and complex carbon emission mechanism. According to the overall judgment of the industry, China's steel industry has gone through four stages of peaking, carbon reduction, decarbonization and neutrality.
HBIS Group has the courage to be a "tide maker" and promote the reform of the energy structure. In May this year, the world's first 5.120 million ton coke oven gas zero reforming "hydrogen metallurgy demonstration project" project achieved stable production in HBIS Zhangxuan Science and Technology, and various indicators reached the international advanced level. For the first time, the project adopts the zero-reforming hydrogen metallurgy technology of high-pressure shaft furnace with coke oven gas as the reducing gas, and the hydrogen-carbon ratio in the process gas is as high as 8∶1. Compared with the "blast furnace-converter" long-process production of the same scale, the annual reduction of carbon dioxide emissions is 80,70 tons, and the emission reduction ratio is up to <>%.
China Iron and Steel Association spoke highly of this: this is a major breakthrough in the core key technological innovation of hydrogen metallurgy, an important milestone in the transformation from traditional "carbon metallurgy" to new "hydrogen metallurgy" in the history of Chinese steel and even the history of world steel, leading the steel industry into the era of "replacing coal with hydrogen" to smelt "green steel".
According to Li Yiren, deputy general manager of HBIS Group, HBIS Group's hydrogen metallurgy will continue to deepen and solidify, and the second phase of the project will develop a 60,2-ton green hydrogen metallurgy project by giving full play to the advantages of Zhangjiakou wind power and photovoltaic hydrogen production, so as to realize the whole process of low-carbon green steel manufacturing. HBIS will build a hydrogen metallurgy project in Tangshan with an annual output of 130×380.<> million tons, and by the end of the <>th Five-Year Plan period, it will form a hydrogen metallurgy capacity with an annual output of <>.<> million tons of clean steelmaking raw materials.
It is worth noting that at present, most of China's steel enterprises are still in the initial stage of low-carbon development. Different enterprises have different levels of green and low-carbon development, and there are also big gaps in their carbon reduction space and carbon emission reduction costs.
Xiong Zhe, Director of the Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality Policy Division of the Department of Resource Conservation and Environmental Protection of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that achieving the "dual carbon" goal is a broad and profound systemic change, which requires hard work from all walks of life and all aspects. It is hoped that the majority of steel enterprises will conform to the trend of the times of green and low-carbon development, closely combine their own development with the national "dual carbon" strategic decision-making, effectively increase green and low-carbon technology innovation, business model innovation and management innovation, fulfill their social responsibilities, achieve new development in achieving the "dual carbon" goal, and promote the green, low-carbon and high-quality development of the steel industry to a new level.
Zhou Lei