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Standards Development
The new work item provides guidance for organizations on how to continuously promote energy efficiency and conservation of steel plants, including specific procedures, perspectives to be considered, and methods for appropriately evaluating equipment that promotes energy efficiency and conservation (i.e. energy-saving equipment). It is expected that organizations will be able to voluntarily and continuously take proper actions to promote energy efficiency and conservation of the steel plants by regularly repeating the planning, implementation, and evaluation of energy efficiency and conservation measures and review for further improvements in the future, in line with this document. It is expected that these actions will lead to achieving CO2 emissions reduction of steel plants and eventually to sustainable steel production.
The boundary of the energy efficiency and conservation measures that is covered by this document is an entire steel plant. This document is applicable to any steel plant, regardless of its manufacturing process, equipment configuration, size, geographic location, products, or the amount and type of energy used.
This document is applicable to activities affecting energy consumption and energy intensity that are managed and controlled by the organization. However, the method for calculating energy consumption and energy intensity of the entire steel plant conforms to the ISO 14404 series (ISO 14404-1, ISO 14404-2, ISO 14404-3, ISO 14404-4). This means that when evaluating the energy consumption and energy intensity of the entire steel plant, not only the direct energy consumption from the steel plant but also the indirect energy consumption from intermediate products (purchased electricity, steam, etc.) and sold items (sold electricity, steam, by-product gas etc.) as defined in the ISO 14404 series are included.
As the purpose of this document is to promote energy efficiency and conservation measures in steel plants, this document does not cover improvements in productivity or product quality. This document is not intended to be a prerequisite for obtaining third-party certification, nor does it specify any performance criteria.
The global demand for steel is expected to continue increasing, and the steel industry is required to make further efforts to reduce CO2 emissions.
There are three approaches to reduce CO2 emissions in the iron and steel industry: (1) the reduction of energy consumption, (2) the low-carbonization of energy (expansion of use of low-carbon power sources, conversion of energy used, etc.), and (3) the development of innovative technologies. (2) and (3) requires expansion of clean energy and development of unestablished technology, and this may take a long time. Therefore, it is essential for the steel industry to work on (1) the reduction of energy consumption, through energy efficiency and conservation measures such as reducing energy losses in plant operation or installing energy-saving equipment recognized as BAT (Best Available Technology) in steel plants, as immediately feasible and realistic measures to reduce CO2 emissions.
However, as the steel industry continues to work on energy efficiency and conservation measures, the following issues can be observed. Firstly, since the manufacturing processes and the equipment configuration is diverse and complex, although there is various equipment that can promote energy efficiency and conservation in steel plants, it is often difficult for the steel plants to determine which equipment will contribute to their energy efficiency and conservation improvement most effectively. In addition, there are cases where steel plants focus only on minimizing the initial investment cost when procuring equipment. Such an approach may lead to undesirable results, such as installation of poor quality equipment and increase in total life cycle cost.
In order to address these issues, the new work item provides appropriate guidance for organizations on how to promote energy efficiency and conservation of steel plants to achieve CO2 emissions reductions, including specific procedures, perspectives to be considered, and methods for evaluating appropriate equipment that contribute to energy efficiency and conservation most effectively.
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