By PTI
LONDON: A new 30-megawatt generator installed at Tata Steel’s Port Talbot site in South Wales will reduce its energy bill by millions of pounds every year at a time when energy prices are rocketing, the Indian steel major announced on Monday.
The generator has been installed in a new turbine hall, as part of a wider 37 million pounds investment at the site’s power station.
Tata Steel said the huge generator also includes environmental benefits as more process gases from the blast furnaces, steelmaking plant and coke ovens can be converted into “useful energy” – reducing emissions from external power generation by more than 40,000 tonnes of carbon-dioxide (CO2) a year.
“Our on-site power plant uses process gases to heat water into steam, which then drives a turbine – like a propellor. This, in turn, drives an electrical rotor to generate our own electricity,” said Guy Simms, Tata Steel’s Project Manager.
“We have a number of these ‘turbo-alternators’ but not enough to use all the steam we can create. This latest addition, energy, however, will make a step-change to our energy-generation capacity. We’ve been hot commissioning the plant, and have run it up to its capacity of 30 megawatts,” he said.
Simms explained that without the generator, the company would not only be forced to flare, or burn off, excess process gases, but also be required to buy more electricity from the national grid. And, the UK still uses a substantial amount of fossil fuel for its electricity generation.
Simms added: “So this investment effectively reduces our offsite carbon footprint by 30MW worth of electricity generation which equates to about 120 tonnes of CO2 a day or 43,800 tonnes of CO2 a year. It has been a gargantuan effort from all the employees and contractor partners involved. And while there have been some setbacks along the way – not least with the pandemic – when you consider the payback from such a big project could be less than a year, all that hard work will be worthwhile.”
The project also included creating a new landscaped area which has been planted with Kidney Vetch – the main food source of the UK’s smallest resident butterfly, the Small Blue. Tata Steel is one of Europe’s leading steel producers, with steelmaking in the Netherlands and the UK, and manufacturing plants across Europe.
The company supplies high-quality steel products to the most demanding markets, including construction and infrastructure, automotive, packaging and engineering.
