Swiss Steel joins alternative energy consortium

The Swiss Steel Group has agreed to participate in an initiative in Germany it says can help supply it with electricity made from renewable energy.

The electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaker operates recycled-content melt shops in Switzerland, Canada and the United States and downstream facilities in Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey.

Swiss Steel says its membership in the Germany-based Initiative EE-Industrie, a consortium of nearly 20 small and medium-sized enterprises, is a "significant milestone on the way to more green steel and a true game changer for the industry.”

Initiative EE-Industrie aims to build, operate and utilize wind and photovoltaic (PV) solar plants for self-supply with green electricity.

“Based on initial forecasts, the consortium will require a total output of 220 megawatts (MW) of wind power and 80 MW of photovoltaics," Swiss Steel says. That output corresponds to 35 to 40 wind turbines and a ground-mounted PV system of 960,000 square meters (10.3 million square feet).

“The importance of a stable and competitive electricity price from sustainable sources for the steel industry cannot be overemphasized,” Swiss Steel says.

“As a manufacturer on the EAF route, we are aware of the urgency to diversify our energy sources in order to further reduce our carbon footprint,” Swiss Steel Group CEO Frank Koch adds. “The initiative firmly believes that a collaborative approach offers the most promising opportunity to secure much-needed quantities of low-CO₂ energy, leverage bundling effects and optimize the cost of green power generation.”

The steelmaker says that as a first step, the companies involved in Initiative EE-Industrie have begun outlining what they consider a practical and legally compliant concept and will then determine the economic framework conditions to produce the needed infrastructure.

Swiss Steel says the participants also are urging politicians to support competitive green electricity.

"We are electrified by the opportunity to become not only consumers but also producers of green energy," Koch says. "The transformation to CO₂-neutral processes is crucial for the steel industry and stable energy prices play a central role in this.

“We hope that our joint efforts with the Initiative EE-Industrie will not only drive forward our own green transformation, but also set an example and inspire other companies to also embark on this path.”