Sweden will soon be home to a major steel factory powered by the ‘world’s largest green hydrogen plant’

Source: Anmar Frangoul · CNBC · | February 25, 2021

Source: fanjianhua | Moment | Getty Images

A Swedish firm backed by investors including Spotify founder Daniel Ek plans to build a steel production facility in the north of the country that will be powered by what it describes as “the world’s largest green hydrogen plant.”

H2 Green Steel, which was established in 2020, will focus on steel made using a “fossil-free manufacturing process” and look to supply European manufacturers with its end product.

In an announcement earlier this week the company — which will be headed up by Henrik Henriksson, the current CEO of Scania — said steel production would start in 2024 and be based in Sweden’s Norrbotten region. By 2030, the aim is for the business to have the capacity to produce 5 million tons of steel per year.

“The climate crisis is the biggest challenge of our time,” Henriksson said in a statement issued Tuesday.

“And given … steel’s impact on other industries’ sustainable development, a rapid change of the steel industry is extremely important,” he added.

According to the International Energy Agency, the iron and steel sector is responsible for 2.6 gigatonnes of direct carbon dioxide emissions each year, a figure that, in 2019, was greater than direct emissions from sectors such as cement and chemicals.