Excess heat from steel plants could be used to heat Sheffield

According to a statement, steel could help provide a green alternative for heating Sheffield’s homes and businesses, alongside other renewable energy sources.

Experts from Sheffield University’s engineering faculty believe that the many steel plants located just outside the city centre could be connected to Sheffield’s existing district heating network to provide an extra 20MW of thermal energy.

‘It actually costs the steel plants to reduce the temperature of the flue gas and to cool the water used during steel manufacture,’ said Prof Jim Swithenbank, who played a key role in developing the first phase of Sheffield’s district heating system in the late 1970s.

‘Recovering this heat and transferring it to the district heating network reduces the cost of heat production, improves energy efficiency and is beneficial to the environment, making a win-win situation for the steelworks and the city.’

Sheffield already has the largest district heating system in the UK, powered through an energy recovery facility that burns the city’s non-recyclable waste. Each year this generates 21MW of electricity, enough to power 22,000 homes, and 60MW of thermal energy in the form of super-heated steam, which is pumped around the city in a 44km network of underground pipes. This provides space heating and hot water to more than 140 public buildings and 3,000 homes across the city, reducing the city’s CO₂ emissions by 21,000 tonnes a year.