Green H₂ and steel decarbonisation

Global steel production emits ~3.3 Gt CO₂eq per year, 7% of the global total. The traditional method (blast furnace with coke) is hardly compatible with decarbonisation. The alternative: direct reduction with hydrogen (DRI-H₂).

How DRI-H₂ works

Instead of coke, green H₂ is used to reduce iron ore to metallic iron. The by-product is water, not CO₂. The reduced iron is processed in an electric furnace (also powered by renewables) to obtain green steel.

The challenge

A 2.5 Mt/year DRI-H₂ plant needs 150,000 t/year of H₂. Producing it locally requires ~1 GW of electrolysis capacity, which means thousands of electrolysers running 24/7.

Electrodes are the key durability component — and this is where Jolt Solutions fits directly into the European green steel roadmap.