Product innovation, low-carbon transition key themes at CII summit

CII' Steel Summit 2023, 'Towards a Globally Competitive & Sustainable Steel Sector: Opportunity & Challenges for Indian Industry' held in New Delhi recently witnessed free and vibrant exchange of views and ideas on steel product innovations and the challenges confronting Indian mills in making the transition to low-carbon steelmaking.

Product innovation

The value-added product basket of tier-1 mills has expanded and the PLI schemes 1 and 2 are aimed at import substitution of different grades of value-added products. Manufacturing capacity for high strength and advanced high-strength steels (AHSS) are expanding for use in various end-use applications.

Conventional high strength steels, such as bake hard-enable and high-strength, low-alloy steels (HSLA), as well as AHSS such as dual phase and transformation-induced plasticity steels find applications in the automotive sector. As light weighting is a key concern in the auto sector for improvements in energy efficiency, significant R&D is going into production of low-weight, high-strength steels.

The focus in also on increasing the steel intensity of construction and manufacturing special grades of non-corrosive, highly ductile structural steel that finds application in renewable energy infrastructure such as offshore wind turbines. From ribbed TMTs to sustainable coatings to lightweight steel framing, steel used for construction in undergoing rapid innovation and improvement.

However, experts expressed fear that influx of imports has seriously affected the viability of the stainless steel sector, which has a large percentage of MSMEs, despite high-quality innovation and widespread applications.

Decarbonising the sector

From increasing the use of renewable energy to replace fossil fuels, higher use of scrap in the ferrous mix, as well as transitioning to natural gas from coal and coke are some of the immediate measures that mills can take to reduce their carbon footprint.

Best available technologies (BATs) in BF-BOF steel production can reduce emissions by 20% in the near-term, experts suggest. Waste heat recovery and recirculation, raw material beneficiation, etc. are strategies to reduce emissions in the near-term. However, with the increase in the share of BF-BOF steel production in India, implantation of carbon capture and storage as well as utilisation (CCUS) will emerge as a key decarbonisation lever.

Availability of natural gas at affordable prices, especially in the eastern part of the country, through pipelines and a national gas policy are required to help the coal-based DRI sector reduce its CO2 footprint.

Technology readiness for most disruptive technologies, such as hydrogen-based direct reduction, may be low today but policy interventions (for example, the Green Hydrogen Mission) are facilitating the gradual adoption of green technologies.