Decarbonizing the Steel Industry: Kraftblock Demonstrates Efficient Waste Heat Utilization at Tata Steel in Jamshedpur
Sulzbach/Saar (Germany) – As the steel industry works toward decarbonization, the efficient use of industrial waste heat represents a promising approach.
The system uses waste heat from the cooling unit of the sinter plant, where hot sintered iron ore is cooled after heating, and stores the heat at temperatures of up to 500 °C. With a maximum discharge capacity of 1.8 MW, the stored energy can be flexibly returned to the process when required in the sintering operation.
According to Kraftblock, this enables annual savings of around 110 GWh of natural gas and avoids approximately 22,000 t of CO₂ emissions.
The facility also helps stabilize the production process and accelerates the sintering operation. It was completed in May 2025 and received the “Deployed Solution of the Year” award in December 2025 as part of Tata Steel’s TQM program, a company-wide quality management system aimed at the continuous improvement of processes and products.
“At Tata Steel, we are committed to decarbonize the steel production. Our Jamshedpur sinter plant's Kraftblock thermal storage system demonstrates how alternative energy solutions can capture and reuse waste heat from one of the most energy-intensive stages of steelmaking. Using waste heat enables us to significantly reduce our fossil energy consumption and emissions while improving process efficiency. This project is a significant step towards a greener, more energy and cost-efficient steel industry,” said Subodh Pandey, VP Technology and R&D at Tata Steel in the New Materials Business (NMB) and Graphene divisions.
Martin Schichtel, CEO and co-founder of Kraftblock, added: “The project at Tata Steel shows the great feasibility of heat recovery and storage in the steel industry. There are many use cases in steelmaking, from furnaces to flaring. With our sustainable Thermal Storages, we progress to support the steel industry in their efforts to become more energy- and cost-efficient.”
Source: IWR Online, 09 Mar 2026
