Tata Steel unit to recover heat from waste gas

Tata Steel has commissioned a facility for recovery of waste-gas heat from its 'G' blast furnace to improve energy efficiency.

The facility was inaugurated by the secretary of the Union steel ministry, Binoo Sen. Tata Steel has become the country's first steel company to initiate energy efficiency project.

New Energy and Industrial Technological Development Organisation (NEDO), a wing of the government of Japan, helped Tata Steel develop the facility for heat recovery from blast furnace waste gas. It would reduce consumption of fuel in the blast furnace.

The project was part of the Japanese government's green aid plan to support Asian countries in saving energy and protecting the environment. In India, NEDO was working with the central steel ministry.

NEDO invested Rs 24 crore in the model project and Tata Steel contributed Rs 7 crore. It was completed 11 months ahead of schedule. Nippon Steel of Japan and Stewarts & Lloyd implemented the project.

Mrs Sen said the Union steel ministry would like the steel sector to grow but also wanted to ensure plants did not pollute the environment.

While the older steel plants invested around 10-15 per cent of their capital on equipment to protect the environment, new plants had environment-friendly equipment from the start.

"Only 50-60 per cent of solid wastes from steel plants are being utilized and I undertand this can go up," Mrs Sen said.

Tata Steel managing director B Muthuraman said, "Our mission is to become a leader in steel manufacturing in the country and for that we have to make constant improvements."

Any project which saved energy made good sense in India as energy was costly. Saving energy meant savings in costs.