Environmental-Techno-Economic analysis of decarbonization strategies for the Indian aluminum industry

Abstract

The growing demand for aluminum in India faces the challenge of decreasing CO2 emissions in order to be in line with the sustainable development targets. India’s aluminum production uses captive power to provide electricity; captive power is one of the major hotspots in decarbonization. An innovative analysis that combines the aluminum production pathways with carbon capture and storage at both the system level and the country level is conducted. A levelized cost of aluminum (LCOAl) is evaluated from the system level. Results show that LCOAl from primary aluminum ranges from 1682 to 2842 $/tonne depending on different captive power, while the recycling aluminum ranges from 1232 to 1250 $/tonne. Sensitivity analyses show that, affected by the material and utility prices, the LCOAl of primary and recycling aluminum is in the range of 1682–3149 $/tonne, and 460–3112 $/tonne, respectively. Electricity price, scrap price, and recycled ingot price are the most sensitive factors for primary, recycling, and remelt aluminum, respectively. From the environmental perspective on the system level, the primary aluminum pathway is 9 to 32 times more carbon-intensive than the recycling aluminum pathway. At the country level, both primary and secondary aluminum production are considered. An optimized combination of aluminum production pathways and decarbonization strategies are provided with the objective to minimize the total cost. The results show that the CO2 emission with electricity provided from wind- and solar-based captive powers are able to satisfy the beyond 2 °C scenario (B2DS), while natural gas-, diesel-, and coal-based captive powers and electricity from the grid need to remove 2 to 201 million tonnes of CO2 to satisfy the B2DS.