Tata Steel’s Gas Enrichment Project Cuts Emissions at Port Talbot

Tata Steel UK announced that a crucial new high tech addition to Port Talbot’s Energy department is reducing reliance on costly natural gas, lowering emissions, and saving the company millions of pounds each year. The Port Talbot site currently generates over 70% of its own energy requirements by utilizing process gases to both replace natural gas and to generate electricity through its onsite power plant, which was recently upgraded with a new GBP 37 million turbo alternator. Until now, on-site gases used in the power plant have been constantly supplemented with imported natural gas to even out any variations in calorific value. Now, a new Gas-enrichment station costing nearly GBP 400,000 smartly tops up the site’s native gases only when it is required, so minimizing the consumption of imported gas. Tata Steel’s Project Process Engineer Mr Imran Shabbir said “Our on-site boilers use site gases such as Blast Furnace gas to generate steam. The energy content or calorific value of that gas occasionally drops, so we have been using large volumes of natural gas as a secondary fuel to combat this. Now however, since natural gas is only injected when the calorific value of the Blast Furnace gas is low, as opposed to the continuous firing we had previously, we are able to reduce natural gas consumption in our service boilers by around 80%, which equates to around 3300 Gigajoules a week. There is also a significant environmental benefit, as the project will reduce CO2 emissions by more than 10,000 tonnes a year.”The 30MW turbo-alternator installed at Tata Steel’s Port Talbot site in 2021 at a cost of around GBP 37 million, has reduced emissions from external power generation by more than 40,000 tonnes of CO2 a year.

Tata Steel’s Gas Enrichment Project Cuts Emissions at Port Talbot

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