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Improving energy efficiency has been widely recognized as a direct, efficient, and cost-effective approach to advancing energy conservation, reducing emissions, and achieving sustainable development. While there are numerous and effective methods to enhance energy efficiency in a typical steel manufacturing system, they are relatively scattered and independent, lacking a systematic review for multi-level, comprehensive and scientific evaluation and improvement of energy efficiency within the steel industry. To fill this gap, this work initially presents an overview of the component units and energy networks within steel production system. Subsequently, a comprehensive review and analysis are conducted from multiple perspectives, such as energy evaluation, diagnosis, benchmarking analysis, optimization, and energy-saving measures. Each part meticulously selects the literature through content evaluation analysis to discuss methods, technologies, and models for improving energy efficiency, along with potential challenges that need to be overcome for future advancements. Furthermore, the paper examines the diverse challenges encountered by steel manufacturing in realizing energy efficiency improvements and exploring energy-saving potential. It also underscores the corresponding future developmental direction, including the construction of multi-level evaluation systems, implementation of intelligent energy efficiency improvement methods and technologies, and adoption of intelligent energy systems crucial for intelligent analysis and manufacturing in steel sector. • Energy efficiency improvement methods within the steel production sector are comprehensively reviewed. • Multi-level energy efficiency evaluation methods for the steel production are summarized. • Advances in energy efficiency diagnosis, benchmarking analysis, optimization and energy-saving technologies are summarized. • Challenges and prospects for energy efficiency improvement in steel sector are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: To promote the sustainable development of the iron and steel industry (ISI), evaluation methods and influencing factors of energy efficiency have been studied in the past decades. A systematic review of these methodologies and influencing factors is presented in this paper. Initially, this paper states the development, current situation, and energy consumption of the world's ISI. Then, the definition of energy efficiency is described. After that, the evaluation methods are categorized as single‐factor methods (including these indicators of thermodynamic, thermos‐physical, thermo‐economic, and economic) and multifactor methods (including parametric and nonparametric methods). Furthermore, typical evaluation methods are highlighted. Thermal analysis method and exergy analysis method are routinely combined to optimize the energy utilization. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) are widely concerned and well developed to gain a better economic benefit. Malmquist index method is often associated with DEA to analyze the technical process and return to scale. Some emerging methods are proposed, for example, the three‐stage DEA method together with DEA and SFA. Finally, the influencing factors of energy efficiency in the ISI are discussed, including industrial structure, technological level, energy consumption structure, price, and so on. It is suggested that optimizing energy structure and improving technology level are effective measures to improve the energy efficiency in the ISI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intensive energy consumption and high pollutant emission have always been the obstacles for achieving the sustainable development of the iron and steel (I&S) industry. The complex material flows, energy flows and emission flow of I&S industry require better assessment to implement comprehensive governance and impact analysis. The 48-month data of a typical I&S enterprise is used for evaluating intensities and analyzing influencing factors from the perspective of material, exergy and emission networks. The results show that the exergy intensity and carbon emission intensity of the whole site including main processes and auxiliary processes are 23.804 GJ/t-CS and 1642.7 kg/t-CS, respectively. In particular, auxiliary process plays a critical role, whose exergy loss accounts for about 28.85% of the total. The terms of energy structure, technology capacity, product structure and environmental conditions are considered to analyze on the influencing factors of the case, and then providing relevant suggestions. On the whole, integration assessment of material-exergy-emission networks of I&S industry is necessary and helpful to find their changes and migration, and to further implement energy management and emission reduction. • Material-exergy-emission network is analyzed for the whole iron & steel enterprise. • The data of main and auxiliary processes with time granularity are analyzed. • The intensities of energy, exergy and emission of various products are presented. • The influencing factors for the material-exergy-emission network are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Towards the target of carbon neutrality, the need for deep decarbonization in iron and steel industry is increasingly recognized. Existing studies rarely mention the effects of collaboration with its source industries for carbon emission reduction in ISI. Furthermore, the fundamental laws of CO 2 emission reduction capacity with cost change of source substitutions for various steel production routes under market economics are unclear. To avoid the blind substitution of clean sources for meeting the urgent requirements for decarbonization in China's steel industry, which may result in increased carbon emissions and uneconomical carbon reduction from a lifecycle perspective. This paper integrates the production and utilization processes of source resources into the steel production process, establishes coupling models of carbon and value flows for four main types of steel production routes, and aims to quantitatively analyze the specific CO 2 emission reduction potential and costs. Three economic market development scenarios from 2021 to 2060 are set, and the marginal carbon prices of various source substitutions are determined. Subsequently, decarbonization pathways with the goal of minimizing production costs are developed. Finally. The future resource demand and the carbon emission reduction contributions of source industries collaborated are predicted. The results show that (1) about 81.7–89.9 % of CO 2 emissions could be reduced in the scenarios; (2) the demands of electric power and hydrogen energy will reach 54.48–511.90 BkWh and 7.47–10.31 Gt in 2060, respectively; and (3) collaboration with source industries could make 18.3–18.3% of CO 2 emission reduction contributions. All in all, this study could provide scientific support for the low-carbon transformation of China's steel industry. • Carbon and value flows of BF-BOF, Scrap-EAF, DRI-EAF, MOE-EAF routes are analyzed. • CO 2 emission reduction potential with marginal carbon price is determined. • Decarbonization paths during 2021–2060 for China's steel industry are developed. • Quantify the contribution of collaborative carbon reduction with source industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]