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Now Available: Benchmarking Energy Intensity in the Canadian Steel Industry
March 1, 2007 ( Ottawa, ON )
The Canadian Steel Producers Association (CSPA) has just completed a major study of the potential for increased energy efficiency in the Canadian steel industry, benchmarking itself against leading energy-saving technologies worldwide. Benchmarking the Energy Intensity of the Canadian Steel Industry was undertaken by the CSPA with funding from Natural Resources Canada’s Industrial Programs Division (IPD) and is part of IPD’s benchmarking initiative established to help Canadian industry achieve significant energy-efficiency gains.
Canadian steel producers have already reduced the amount of energy required to make a tonne of shipped steel by 26 percent since 1990 — double the target set by the CSPA under Natural Resources Canada’s Canadian Industry Program for Energy Conservation. Because of the industry’s commitment to energy efficiency and lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the study was undertaken to identify potential opportunities for energy reduction. Twelve plants agreed to compare their steel mills with a model EcoTech plant developed by the International Iron and Steel Institute (IISI). The study did not report on actual energy use but rather benchmarked the industry. It compared the technologies used in the Canadian steel plants and the energy intensity of their processes with those of the EcoTech plant.
The IISI EcoTech steel plant is a model example that employs energy-saving technologies that are both commercially available and economically attractive, and is considerably better than best practice today. A number of factors influence whether the technologies are economically attractive: the energy price in a particular jurisdiction, the difficulty of retrofitting the technologies into existing process equipment and incremental benefits if the technologies are only partially implemented. This assessment can be done only on a plant-by-plant basis.
The CSPA benchmarking study, to be published early in 2005, concluded that processes such as electric arc furnaces and blast furnaces are already characterized by a high use of EcoTech technologies. On the other hand, opportunities for improvement were found in processes such as steel reheating furnaces and the power plants at integrated steel mills. The study underlines the significant benefits that the integrated steel mills in Ontario could realize from the development of cogeneration facilities. Cogeneration using byproduct gas has the potential to reduce energy requirements and would result in a significant offset in the demand for electricity production in Ontario.
The opportunities identified by the study will be further assessed at the plant level, including an evaluation of costs and benefits, and to determine whether they can be retrofitted to a particular plant configuration.
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For more information, media may contact:
Ghyslain Charron
Media Relations
Ottawa Natural Resources Canada
(613) 992-4447
Tom Ormsby
Director of Communications
Natural Resources Canada Office of the Minister
Ottawa
(613) 996-2007
Barry Lacombe
President
Canadian Steel Producers Association
(613) 238-6049
Lynne Ree
Senior Advisor, Environmental Affairs
Canadian Steel Producers Association
(613) 238-6049