Cost of energy saving and CO2 emissions reduction in China’s iron and steel sector

Abstract

This paper estimated the cost curve of energy saving and CO2 emissions reduction in China’s iron and steel sector. Forty-one energy saving technologies which are widely used or popularized are selected, their investments, operation costs, energy savings and CO2 abatement are collected and the data in 2010 are taken as a baseline. Then energy conservation supply curve and CO2 conservation supply curve under two different discount rates are calculated in the paper. These 41 technologies result in a saving contribution of 4.63GJ/t and a CO2 abatement contribution of 443.21kg/t. Cost-effectiveness of technologies was analyzed based on the fuel price and an estimated CO2 price. When comparing the result with the promoted technologies during the 12th five-year-plan, we found that some promoted technologies are not cost-effective in current situation. Three scenarios are set through changing the diffusion rate of technologies and the share of BOF and EAF, based on this energy saving potentials of technologies in 2020 and 2030 are forecasted. At the same time, we compared the change of the CSC depending on the year and the energy saving potentials in three scenarios of 2020 and 2030, respectively.