Enhancing the effectiveness of the utility energy supply chain in integrated steel manufacturing

The iron and steel industry is energy intensive. The steel industry accounts for 2–3 of total US energy consumption. The energy costs account for 12–15% of the total cost of manufacturing steel. Cogeneration is done by most of the integrated steel producers for on-site electricity generation. The steel industries use different utility systems, and 90% of the industry uses standard steam boilers, steam turbines and BOP (Basic Oxygen Process). The boilers produce steam which is used for power generation and production processes. The system consumes oil, natural gas and blast furnace gas (BFG) to produce this steam and electricity. It is difficult to modulate the machines and manage the system optimally because the boilers may not react to sudden changes in steam loads and fuel availability. Minimizing the fuel cost is an important issue. This could result in the plant using large quantities of purchased fuel and wasting the free sources of energy; such as the BFG to flare and venting BOP steam.; The utility systems in the steel industry, consisting of boilers and turbines, can be considered as a Supply Chain. The venting of free available energy is a major problem with this “Energy Supply Chain”. The solution to this problem is to integrate and link all the system components so that they react together to control the dynamics of the system.; The aim of this research is to design and develop a simulation model for the utility energy supply chain in the steel industry with the help of collected data and validate the model. This model can be used to analyze different control strategies and for generating control and operating strategy decisions.