A gigascale green hydrogen plant will be built in northern Sweden as part of €2.5bn plans unveiled today (23rd Feb) to produce fossil-free steel at a leading cost position by 2024.

H2 Green Steel, behind the plans, expects to have an annual production capacity of five million tons of high-quality steel by 2030, produced by a fossil-free manufacturing process targeting large European OEMs.

Set to be located in the in the Boden-Luleå region in northern Sweden, the hydrogen plant will be an integrated part of the steel production facility.

Taking inspiration from the groundbreaking HYBRIT project, H2 Green Steel said it looks forward to close collaboration with the HYBRIT founders, SSAB, LKAB and Vattenfall, sharing the vision to position Sweden at the forefront of fossil-free steel production.

“The climate crisis is the biggest challenge of our time and given steel’s impact on other industries’ sustainable development, a rapid change of the steel industry is extremely important,” said Henrik Henriksson, incoming CEO of H2 Green Steel.

“H2 Green Steel will accelerate this change and make Swedish steel world famous, not only for its quality, but also as the world’s greenest steel.”

“I look forward to join this journey from the start, building Sweden’s next export success.”

This initiative has been developed in close collaboration between Vargas and several strategic and financial investors that are global leaders in sustainability and digitalisation.

H2 Green Steel said it is in the process of closing its series A equity financing of €50m from a select group of investors, including Vargas, Scania, SMS group, Bilstein Group, EIT InnoEnergy, Cristina Stenbeck, Daniel Ek, Altor Fund V and IMAS Foundation.

Total financing for the first phase of the project amounts to approximately €2.5bn, which H2 Green Steel said will be raised through a combination of equity and green project financing.

This article is reproduced at www.h2-view.com