It was recently announced that Salzgitter AG has launched a tender for a minimum of 100,000 tonnes of low-carbon hydrogen. They have done this as the company is interested in using the hydrogen within its green steel production facility, that is based in Salzgitter, specifically Germany.

The company has stated that they are expecting part of this volume to be generated from the company’s own 100MW electrolysis plant, which will be based on site from 2026 onwards. It is predicted that this plant will produce about 9,000 tonnes every year.

Salzgitter’s tender officially opened on the 24th of June 2024 and the company is now hopeful that they will receive bids in a subsequent process. The whole plan will be reliant on Germany’s planned 9,700km hydrogen core network (HCN) or a direct pipeline of a similar sort, however once it is successful the tender will complement the company’s Salzgitter Low CO2 Steelmaking (SALCOS®) transformation programme. Within this expansion programme, it is very clear that the quantities which can be used in Stage 1 of this process is a maximum of 150,000 tonnes on an annual basis.

It is predicated that the external supply of hydrogen will be due to begin in 2027 and this will be possible if the HCN connection is established. Once this has been sorted and the Salzgitter’s hydrogen-based crude steel production plant is complete, it will be possible to save an estimated 95% of the current annual of direct CO2 emissions, which come to about eight million tonnes.

It has been planned that this plant will be finished by 2033.

Chairman of the Executive Board at Salzgitter, Gunnar Groebler, commented, “In order to fully exploit the CO2 savings potential of SALCOS®, we need a prompt connection to the Salzgitter site to the hydrogen core network. We are counting on FNB Gas submitting an application for the core network to the Federal Network Agency as soon as the state aid approval is available and expect a reliable timetable for the construction of the hydrogen core network, which must be tackled with determination.”