The EU Commission has granted state aid approval for German federal and state government funding of the “tkH2Steel” decarbonisation project in a total amount of around €2 billion ($2.2 billion), Kallanish learns from thyssenkrupp.
The funding will take place via two interlinked instruments, “Initial Grant” and “Conditional Payment”, thus underwriting and promoting, above all, innovative plant technology and an early end to natural gas use.
The pioneering concept is characterised in particular by its innovativeness and the extremely ambitious hydrogen ramp-up, tk points out. It claims that “tkH2Steel” will become a driver of the European hydrogen economy. Consequently, it will function as a sheet anchor for investments in the rapid development of a cross-border hydrogen infrastructure. Thyssenkrupp’s own investment is just under €1 billion, it adds.
The core of the “tkH2Steel” concept lies in the integration of a technologically new plant combination at Europe’s largest iron and steel plant. The 100% hydrogen-capable direct reduction plant with two downstream melters has a production capacity of 2.5 million tonnes/year of DRI, making for 2.3mt of hot metal. It is the first plant combination of its kind in the world with this technological concept, tk states.
Since work was already approved to start earlier, tk Steel previously commissioned SMS Group with the construction of the DRI plant, as well as the two melters and associated secondary units. The detailed planning and preparatory construction measures are already correspondingly advanced, it notes.
Christian Koehl Germany