The Swedish company H2 Green Steel wants to be responsible for the first large fossil-free metallurgical industry plant. The German firm Grupo SMS deals, among other things, with the combination and interconnection of devices and machines of said installations. A brand new industrial plant with two huge red towers raised in the middle of a lush snowy forest in Sweden, specifically in the municipality of Boden, 200 kilometers from the border with Finland. That is the image of the future in the medium term in which they are already investing in the industrial metal sector. At least that is the case with the Swedish company H2 Green Steel, founded with the idea of producing steel through practically fossil-free processes, using green hydrogen. There are not a few investors, involved and interested in this project, whose plant wants to open its doors in 2025. The technological organization, combining and interconnecting devices and machines from the facilities of this “ecological” metallurgical plant that will occupy 300 hectares, is responsible for the German company Grupo SMS, based in Düsseldorf (West Germany). It is a company with 150 years of history, 14,500 employees around the world and a turnover last year of some 2,600 million euros. Its facilities do not hide their enthusiasm for fulfilling their part of the work in H2 Green Steel, an initiative that define the Düsseldorf firm as a “historic project” at the service of decarbonization. “Neutral metal made with green hydrogen. A futuristic dream of a distant future? No, it is a reality, a metallurgical plant to be built in the north of Sweden using the experience and equipment of the SMS Group”, this is how they present their participation in H2 Green Steel in that German company. Regardless of Scholz’s intentions and company, in the SMS Group the commitment to the Boden project could not be clearer. At H2 Green Steel, “we supply all the technology for the production and processing of steel” in addition to the “casting and rolling technology” together with that of “steel production”, as explained to the economic pages of the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper. Zeitung the president of the SMS Group, Burkhard Dahmen.A chapter in industrial history“In total, this is a volume of more than one billion euros, the largest order in the history of our company. For us, this is an absolutely landmark project”, according to the benefits for his company that Dahmen has reported, who also agrees in pointing out that “a chapter of industrial history” is being written in Boden. metal is characterized by its high emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that is blamed for global warming. These emissions come from the energy used intensively by this industrial sector. Namely, coal and gas. Boden, where work began earlier this year to build the H2 Green Steel plant, is supposed to generate 1,500 jobs once its furnaces start working, which They run on green hydrogen. They say that five million tons of “green steel” will be produced there by 2030, whose production reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 95% compared to traditional steelmaking methods. By 2030 we will produce 5 million tons of green steel in Boden every year. With an ambitious timeline and high standards for environmental and social safeguards both during construction and when up and running, our greenfield steel plant will be the first of its kind. pic.twitter.com/raayzyhGir— H2 Green Steel (@H2GreenSteel) November 2, 2022 Hydropower for green hydrogen Unlike those traditional methods of the metallurgical industry, in H2 Green Steel green hydrogen is the main source of energy . The gas arises from the process of electrolysis of water, a process that requires energy that in Boden will come from a renewable energy source: hydroelectric power. they are much more stable than wind or photovoltaic energy when it comes to supplying the necessary energy”, according to the explanations given by Burkhard Dahmen from the SMS Group. The logistics and planning for which this German firm is responsible will intervene in the metal production process once the electrolysis of water is a reality in Boden. The project of H2 Green Steel, the SMS Group and company has already won favors of large European financial players, such as the French banks BNP Parisbas and Société Générale, the Dutch entity ING or the Italian Unicredit. The European Investment Bank – owned by the EU Member States – and the Swedish National Debt Office also support what wants to be the first “green metallurgy” company. A project unrelated to the crisis caused by the invasion of Russia against Ukraine Thus, last October H2 Green Steel could announce that it had received support from, among others, these institutions to finance a debt of 3,500 million euros. With such support, at H2 Green Steel, its CEO, Henrik Henriksson, has reason to speak of the “comfort” they feel in their start-up. To a certain extent, Boden’s project seems to live oblivious to the concern generated by the situation created by Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. In large European economies that have been characterized by being highly dependent on Russian gas, such as Germany, recession is just around the corner. For the Düsseldorf-based SMS Group, H2 Green Steel can provide fresh air in a particularly difficult economic environment . However, the German metallurgical sector has been described for some time as being in a “restructuring” phase to be less polluting. This is something that could benefit the SMS Group. Even so, seeing facilities like the ones promised by H2 Green Steel operate is something that is still long in coming, whether in Germany or Sweden.