The First Electric Arc Furnace Waste Heat Recovery ORC-based System is in Commercial Operation at Feralpi Steel Plant in Germany

BRESCIA, Italy, November 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

A new generation of heat recovery plants, proven in energy intensive industries, provides valuable benefits in terms of energy efficiency, sustainability and competitiveness, also to the steel and metal industry. 

Turboden, a leading company in the production of Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) turbo-generators for distributed power generation employing renewable sources and waste heat, a group company of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (MHI), implemented the first ORC-based heat recovery plant on an Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) in the world. The new 3 MW electrical output ORC unit exploits a portion of the saturated steam produced and recovers heat from the exhaust gases downstream an EAF at ESF (Elbe-Stahlwerke Feralpi GmbH), one of the Europe's most qualified iron and steel manufacturers, located in Riesa, Germany.

The heat recovery system was started up on December 2013. It is connected to the off-gas treatment system of the melting electric furnace. The recovered energy reduces the net power consumption, allowing significant CO₂ reduction.

In addition to electricity production, the remaining portion of the steam is fed into the Riesa Municipal steam supply system and used in a nearby tire factory production process.

Turboden, a pioneer in ORC technology, designs, develops and implements generation plants, allowing reduction of industrial energy consumption and emissions containment through heat recovery from unexploited residual heat streams and exhaust gases in production processes and power plants.

This technology is best applied in energy-intensive industries such as glass, cement, aluminum, iron & steel, where production processes typically generate exhaust gases above 250°C.

These new plants not only provide advantages in terms of environmental sustainability, emissions reduction, increased industrial process efficiency and improved business performance, but they also represent opportunities for increased competitiveness.

Since 2007, Turboden has designed and implemented 34 power plants for heat recovery in Germany, Belgium, Romania, Slovakia, Italy, Finland, Austria, Turkey, Morocco, Canada, United States and Singapore, with additional plants under construction in Germany, Italy, France, Turkey, Romania, Canada and Russia.

According to the Energy Efficiency Report 2012, a study conducted by the Politecnico di Milano on energy efficiency in industrial processes, the estimated potential of electricity produced through ORC-based heat recovery technology could financially benefit Europe with up to 8 billion Euros with about 2.5 GW saved power implying a CO₂ reduction of almost 7.5 million tons.