On its pathway to net zero, ArcelorMittal, an international leader in steel manufacturing, wanted to drastically reduce the waste heat across its manufacturing processes.

In France, the French Agency for Ecological Transition (ADEME) estimates that 51 terawatt-hours (TWh) of heat (above 100°C) is wasted in industry, equivalent to 10% of France’s consumption of electricity. Implementing waste heat recovery in industrial installations, however, presents real difficulties, which include the complexity, cost and reliability of recovery solutions.

ArcelorMittal forged a partnership with Capgemini and the French government to launch a heat recovery analysis project. The project developed a holistic approach (process, simulation models, AI algorithms and digital applications) to analyse a site industrial context, its operational data, and technical and economic data from solutions suppliers to deliver a report on the technical-economic and ROI performance of heat recovery solutions.

The solution allows operations leaders to quickly identify the suitable technical solution for each site, evaluate the ROI, assess the reduction in CO2 emissions and evaluate the recoverable energy that can be reclaimed.

The energy savings for ArcelorMittal have been estimated to be 10% per plant, corresponding to 0.67 TWh per year across all French plants. The model developed can be scaled to other process industries that are subject to waste heat.