European steel industry is preparing to the green future. Recently, a new green hydrogen facility, WindH2, was opened in Germany with the thought to decrease carbon footprint in following years.
Steel industry is heavily dependent on hydrogen. Usually, hydrogen comes from electrolysis – which is the process of electrically split of water into oxygen and hydrogen. The “green” part comes from the electricity generation: If the electricity comes from green sources (solar, wind etc.), then hydrogen is considered to be green, as well.
Steel industry consumes about 75% of coal among all industries, which leads to about 2600 tonnes of CO2 emissions each year. So, greenization of the industry might greatly decrease global pollution. The WindH2 project was started with 7 wind turbines with a 30 MW capacity, three of which are located nearby the steel mill. As part of this project, hydrogen generated from renewable energies is to replace the carbon so far required for the smelting of iron ore.
WindH2 is not the only European project focusing on green hydrogen. There's another example of H2 Green Steel – a Swedish firm which plans to build a green hydrogen facility in Sweden. But those are only the plans, so WindH2 might be pioneer which would lay the ground for the green industrial future.