The Predicament of Iron and Steel Reduction and Solutions

Faced with huge pressures for energy conservation and emission reduction, where are the outlets for steel companies? At the 2014 National Metallurgical Energy Environmental Protection Production Technology Conference held recently, the participants held heated discussions on the above issues.

What are the problems?

Six Problems Constrain Green Development

The main problems in the green development of China's iron and steel industry are as follows: First, the industrial scale is large, and the total energy consumption and total discharge of pollutants are large.

Second, energy-saving technologies still need to be improved and developed. The urgent need to develop low-quality waste heat and sensible slag heat recovery and utilization technologies urgently needs to solve the problem of efficient gas utilization, high-value utilization and energy flow network optimization.

Third, environmental standards are increasingly strict, but lack of technical, financial and management support. The existing environmental protection standards have not been put in place, mainly because they are not technical problems, but they are not enforced by law. This has also caused unfair competition among enterprises.

Fourth, the layout of the iron and steel industry is irrational, and energy use efficiency and pollution control levels coexist at multiple levels.

Fifth, the export volume of steel products is large, the consumption of resources and energy is large, and the environmental load is high.

Sixth, the green development of industrialized technology and technological innovation needs to be strengthened.

Face two highs and two low problems

At present, China's iron and steel industry is faced with the problem of “two highs and two lows” in energy conservation and environmental protection, namely, high output, high energy consumption, low profits, and low energy efficiency.

Due to factors such as overcapacity and high raw fuel prices, the steel industry suffered large losses. If large, medium and small- and medium-sized steel companies are taken into account together, the current energy utilization efficiency of China's iron and steel industry is 10% to 20% lower than the international advanced level, and steel and iron energy costs account for 25% to 30% of the total cost.

Business mentality needs to be adjusted

At present, various iron and steel enterprises have made progress in the implementation of contract energy management business models and mechanisms in energy-saving retrofit projects. The fundamental reason is that the management and ideology of some enterprises are still not adapted to the market-oriented development of resource allocation and requirements.

Some large companies believe that they do not have enough money or people and can do everything themselves. In reality, due to reasons such as concept, mechanism and professional quality, many companies cannot see the gap and potential of their own energy efficiency improvement. For example, some companies are concerned about exposing their own problems in the design, management, and production of technological innovations, while others lack the platforms, mechanisms, and talents for carrying out contract energy management projects.

What is the way to adjust depth?

Five steps to improve energy efficiency

Now that energy conservation is mentioned, the first response of the factory manager may be that the last energy-saving equipment or technology can reduce the energy consumption. The actual situation is not the case.

The World Steel Association has proposed a "five-step" proposal for the gradual improvement of energy use: the first step is to conduct efficient management and decision-making; the second step is to improve the quality of raw materials, and to find the best quality on the premise of economy. Good raw materials; the third step is to ensure the reliability of the process, to see if the selected process is optimized; the fourth step is to improve the yield of the operation; the fifth step is to promote the application of energy-saving technologies.

These five steps are very important for steel companies. The first step is to conduct an overall analysis of its own situation and improve operations, management and processes. The final step is the application of specific technologies.

The waste elimination function has not been played yet

For the three major functions of the steel industry, their manufacturing functions have been fully implemented, but the energy conversion function and the waste elimination function can be said to have just begun.

The development of energy conservation and environmental protection in enterprises should focus on the training of “three forces”:

The first is technical leadership. Chinese steel companies should make new discoveries and new contributions to the processes, products, and equipment under the new situation.

The second is the cost of competitiveness. If the cost of technology is high, competitiveness is not enough. Advanced technology and cost matching can be widely used.

The third is the competitiveness of sustainable development. With continuous value-creation capabilities, companies have the ability to continue to develop.

What are the best companies in the industry?

Strengthening advance control and process control

Do a good job of "ex-ante control" of energy management from "post-event management" to "preventive management"; strengthen "process control", and carry out grading control and detailed management of important energy influencing factors, and implement them in workshops, positions, and personnel. Even the specific operation behavior; actively carry out benchmarking activities; formulate energy cost indicators.

Strict use of tools for assessment

Establish and improve three major systems of energy conservation and emission reduction statistics, monitoring and assessment, and include the reduction of energy consumption and the completion of pollution reduction into the assessment and evaluation system of the economic responsibility responsibility system; implement a strict accountability system and a one-vote veto system; The unit signed annual responsibility statements for energy conservation and emission reduction; conducted energy audits throughout the company and set out to establish an energy management system.

In the specific implementation process, energy-saving bridge energy efficiency management tools have also been introduced. "Energy consumption bridge" is a method to find the energy loss by calculating the difference between the actual energy consumption of the equipment and the technical limit. Through centralized training, factory training, etc., training tools such as brainstorming, “energy consumption bridge”, and tactical execution plans, and training methods for work methods were carried out. The relevant personnel of each unit completed the pilot production line “energy consumption bridge” and MIFA (Logistics and The information flow analysis) diagram is drawn, the problem tree is listed through brainstorming, and different levels of tactical implementation plans are formed and implemented.