Salzgitter AG and Uniper SE have signed a preliminary agreement for the supply and purchase of green hydrogen. This is to be produced in the large-scale electrolysis plant planned by Uniper, which is scheduled to be commissioned in Wilhelmshaven in 2028. The green hydrogen is required for the “Salcos – Salzgitter Low CO2 Steelmaking” program and will be used in the direct reduction plant currently under construction in Salzgitter to produce almost CO2-neutral steel.
Among other things, the preliminary agreement covers the technical and commercial framework conditions for the supply of hydrogen. Depending on the availability of the German H2 core network and a specific pipeline route from Wilhelmshaven to Salzgitter, Uniper could supply 20,000 tons of certified green hydrogen to Salzgitter every year from 2028 at the earliest. These will be produced with the help of “renewable energies” in the 200 MW electrolysis plant that Uniper plans to build on the site of the former hard coal-fired power plant in Wilhelmshaven. This is a first step towards the external hydrogen supply of Salcos, which has an annual hydrogen requirement of up to 150,000 tons in its first stage. A pipeline connection from Wilhelmshaven to Salzgitter is absolutely essential and must be created as quickly as possible. The pipeline operators and political decision-makers, together with Salzgitter AG and Uniper SE, urgently need to agree on an accelerated timetable.
Wilhelmshaven is the ideal location for Unipers Green Wilhelmshaven projects due to its good access to renewable energies, particularly from the offshore wind farms in the North Sea, the early connection to the German hydrogen pipeline system and the planned hydrogen storage facilities in northern Germany. The plan is to expand electrolysis to a capacity of 1 GW, which will enable hydrogen production of 100,000 tons per year.
The Salzgitter Group is pursuing a Carbon Direct Avoidance strategy and will significantly reduce its CO2 footprint. To this end, the Salcos program is gradually converting traditional coal-based steel production via the blast furnace route to direct reduction technology (DRI production with downstream EAF), in which initially mainly natural gas and increasingly green hydrogen are used as reducing agents. The first step has been taken by concluding a preliminary agreement with Uniper.
With the launch of its green steel brand Salcos, the steel and technology group Salzgitter AG wants to support its customers in decarbonizing their value chains sustainably and transparently. The company therefore presented its green steel brand Salcos for the first time at Hannover Messe 2024. This clearly identifies the Group’s CO2-reduced steel products.
The central building block and brand promise of the Salcos green steel brand is therefore the close orientation to the green steel categorization of the so-called Low Emission Steel Standard (LESS) of the German Steel Federation. Under the Salcos brand, the Salzgitter Group exclusively offers physically CO2-reduced green steel products of LESS category C and better.
