Tata Steel commissioned an electric arc furnace-based steel plant in Punjab’s Ludhiana, taking the first major step in green steel making in India.
With a capacity of 0.75 million tonnes and built at a cost of ₹3,200 crore, the EAF will use steel scrap as primary raw material and is projected to emit seven times lower carbon than the company’s other conventional blast furnace-based plants in the country.
Speaking at the inauguration of the unit, N. Chandrasekaran, chairman of the Tata group, described the Ludhiana plant as ‘role model’ in sustainable steel making and projected that the model could be replicated in 4-5 other places in the country.
Recognising that steel is a hard to abate sector for green transformation, Chandrasekaran said that Tata Steel will ‘probably have the toughest challenge’ to align with Tata Group’s stated target to reach net zero across all companies by 2045.
Tata Steel has 35 million tonnes of steel capacity, including 25 mt in India, and another 10 mt between Europe and the UK. In the UK, 3 mt capacity is getting converted to green steel and efforts are going on in the Netherlands (Europe) for converting the 7 mt into green steel over the next 10 years, the chairman observed.
“Whereas in India, it’s going to be very hard because we are also increasing the capacity. Already from the current 25 mt, we have committed another 6.5 mt — 5 mt
in Neelachal Ispat Nigam and another 1.5 mt at erstwhile Bhushan plant. So, we will already be about 32 mt of blast furnace-based steel plant. We are talking almost about 100 mt of carbon that will get emitted just with the steel plant,” Chandrasekaran explained.
With the company needed to make the first step in green steel making, the Ludhiana plant has come up with 0.3 tonnes carbon emission per tonne of steel, compared with 2.2 mt carbon in other units. It will draw 50 per cent power from renewable sources.
The commission of plant, built in two years, was attended by Punjab chief minister S Bhagwant Singh Mann and Tata Steel managing director and CEO T. V. Narendran.