Tata Steel reduces energy bill and emissions with new 30MW generator

Combating current energy price rises, Tata Steel’s Port Talbot site has installed a new 30MW generator that will reduce its energy bill by millions of pounds every year as well as providing environmental benefits.

The generator will allow more process gases from the blast furnaces, steelmaking plant and coke ovens to be converted into useful energy – reducing emissions from external power generation by more than 40,000 tonnes of CO₂ a year.

As part of a wider £37M investment in the site’s power station, the generator has been installed in a new turbine hall. The project also included creating a new landscaped area, which has been planted with Kidney Vetch – the main food source of the UK’s smallest resident butterfly, the Small Blue.

Tata Steel’s Project Manager, Guy Simms, said: “Our onsite power plant uses process gases to heat water into steam, which then drives a turbine – like a propellor. This, in turn, drives an electrical rotor to generate our own electricity.

“We have a number of these ‘turbo-alternators’ but not enough to use all the steam we can create.

“This latest addition, however, will make a step-change to our energy-generation capacity. We’ve been commissioning the plant, and have run it up to its capacity of 30 megawatts.”