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C1: Waste heat recovery
In Japan the integrated steel works has largely lowered its energy use for the past several decades throughout the investment of energy efficient processes and facilities, and has kept the highest energy efficiency in the world. However, in view of energy security, the steelmaking industry is strongly required to develop new technologies for further energy saving. Waste heat recovery can be one of the key technologies to meet the requirement. To recover the waste heat, particularly radiant heat from steel products which had not been used yet efficiently, a thermoelectric generation is one of the most effective technologies to recover it, because thermoelectric generation can convert heat directly into electric power.
JFE Steel Corporation (JFE) implemented a 10-kW class grid-connected thermoelectric generation (TEG) system for JFE’s continuous casting line with KELK Ltd. (KELK), and started verification tests to generate electric power by using radiant heat from continuous casting slabs at the end of fiscal 2012. The TEG system has 56 TEG units and the TEG unit has 16 TEG modules, therefore the TEG system has 896 TEG modules. This paper describes the performance and durability of the TEG system which had been investigated under various operating conditions in continuous casting line.
Key words: Exhaust heat, heat recovery, thermoelectric generation system exhaust heat
Acknowledgement: This study was carried out as a part of the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) project ‘‘Research and Development Program for Innovative Energy Efficiency Technology’’.