Utility Achieves Industry-First Hydrogen Production Using Steel Manufacturing Off-Gases

March 14, 2025

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(Utility/CISION) Onsite hydrogen production using industrial off-gases now offers a commercially viable, economic clean energy for heavy industry -- Utility, the leader in affordable, reliable and clean hydrogen solutions that drive a profitable energy transition for hard-to-abate industries worldwide, today announced the successful operation of the company's H2Gen® system at a major steel plant in North America. Utility's H2Gen system successfully produced the world's first hydrogen using steel plant off-gas (blast furnace gas) in an elegant single process step under actual site conditions. Additionally, this marks the industry's first successful implementation of a system that can produce clean hydrogen from water without the need for electricity. The H2Gen system is now proven as the leading economic clean hydrogen platform solving the steel industry's significant clean energy challenges. It is a solution that is commercially available, cost-effective, offers a profitable pathway to a clean energy transition and easily integrates with existing assets.

Steel production is vital to industrial progress, but it is also one of the world's most energy-intensive processes, facing significant energy transition hurdles in reducing its carbon footprint. These challenges include:

Capital costs in the billions of dollars for alternative steelmaking technologies compared to the blast furnaces used in making most of the steel globally
Limited space and infrastructure constraints for making economic on-site clean hydrogen that can reduce carbon footprint of existing steel plants
The need to balance sustainability with productivity and global competitiveness while lacking economic carbon capture solutions for the steel industry

Utility's H2Gen system offers a groundbreaking solution to these challenges by producing hydrogen from water using industrial off-gases, such as blast furnace gas. The H2Gen system enables on-site hydrogen production with a compact footprint while delivering enriched CO₂ at a single point for cost-effective carbon capture. With more than 3,000 hours of successful operation at a major steel plant, H2Gen has demonstrated its ability to drive a cost-effective, scalable, reliable and commercially ready energy transition pathway for heavy industries including steel, biogas-to-hydrogen, chemicals, refining, upstream oil & gas, power, and hydrogen-powered data centers.

REAL-WORLD PROJECT RESULTS:

Hydrogen Production: The H2Gen system consistently produced hydrogen on-site without the need for electrical input to the reaction.
Seamless Integration: Designed for compatibility and operational simplicity, the modular, factory-built H2Gen system integrates with existing steel plant processes with minimal pre- and post-gas treatment, enhancing operational efficiency.
Robust Performance: The system demonstrated significant flexibility, handling a wide variety of feed gas conditions and could restart in less than 15 minutes after feed gas outage events.
Cost-Effective and Scalable Solution: By minimizing operating and capital costs with a very small onsite footprint and modular scalability, H2Gen provides a practical, economic pathway to clean hydrogen production for decarbonizing steel manufacturing, among many other hard-to-abate industry sectors.

"Decarbonizing heavy industries like steel, mobility, chemicals, refining, and power has been one of the toughest challenges in the energy transition — until now. Our successful deployment of H2Gen at a major steel plant proves we can deliver scalable, economic, clean hydrogen solutions that seamlessly integrate with existing infrastructure and assets. H2Gen is the only commercially viable solution for producing clean hydrogen in hard-to-abate industries like steelmaking." stated Parker Meeks, chief executive officer of Utility. "Utility is rapidly scaling to meet global demand, with strong momentum in steel, biogas-to-hydrogen for mobility and beyond. Our H2Gen systems provide an economic, modular solution without the high costs and infrastructure barriers of alternative hydrogen technologies. With strong customer and partner momentum including the recent ArcelorMittal funding and GH EnA Project Development announcements, we are accelerating the shift to clean hydrogen at scale."

Utility Global, Inc. (www.utilityglobal.com) is a portfolio company of Ara Partners (www.arapartners.com), a private equity firm specializing in industrial decarbonization investments.

About Utility
Utility is a Houston, Texas-based off-gas-to-value company built specifically to enable economic decarbonization of hard-to-abate sectors like mobility, steel and others. Utility's H2Gen® system needs no electricity to utilize the remaining electrochemical energy contained in a wide range of dilute off-gases to produce high-purity clean hydrogen from water.

Utility's H2Gen systems are highly scalable, modular, smaller in size and compatible with existing industrial processes and assets. H2Gen minimizes balance of plant, increases operational flexibility and offers attractive benefits in total cost of ownership. Utility helps companies in hard-to-abate industries meet sustainability and business goals by reducing emissions, energy use and waste profitably. Utility turns the environmental challenges of off-gases into competitive advantages as onsite energy, fuel or feedstock.

About Ara Partners
Founded in 2017, Ara Partners is a global private equity and infrastructure firm dedicated to decarbonizing the industrial economy. Ara seeks to build, scale, and optimize companies with significant decarbonization impact across the industrial and manufacturing, chemicals and materials, energy efficiency and fuels, and food and agriculture sectors. The company operates from offices in Houston, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Dublin. Ara Partners closed its third private equity fund in December 2023 with over $2.8 billion in new capital commitments. As of September 2024, Ara Partners had approximately $6.3 billion of assets under management.

For more information about Ara Partners, please visit www.arapartners.com. READ MORE

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ArcelorMittal Europe urges faster implementation of Steel and Metals Action Plan (ArcelorMittal Europe)

Excerpt from ArcelorMittal Europe: Lack of certainty makes it impossible to move forward with DRI-EAF plans in Bremen and Eisenhüttenstadt,

ArcelorMittal Europe announces today (June 19, 2025) that, regrettably, it cannot proceed with its previously announced DRI and EAF plans for the decarbonisation of its flat steelmaking sites in Bremen and Eisenhüttenstadt.

ArcelorMittal had already stated in November 2024 that it was unable to take final investment decisions on constructing new DRI-EAF assets in Europe, given that the policy, energy and market environments had not moved in a favourable direction. The company had also said at that time it was evaluating a phased approach to decarbonisation in Europe, starting with the construction of electric arc furnaces.

As the contract with the Federal government of Germany, for EUR 1.3 billion of financial assistance required construction on the DRI-EAF project to commence by June 2025, ArcelorMittal Germany has been obliged to formally notify the government that it cannot proceed with these investments, given the realities of the market and the economics of low-carbon emissions steelmaking.

In line with the company’s intention to take a phased approach to its decarbonisation in Europe, the next step in Bremen and Eisenhüttenstadt will focus on detailed planning for the construction of electric arc furnaces, to be ready for a scenario in which there is a strong business case for EAF-based production in these sites.

ArcelorMittal remains committed to continuing to reduce the carbon footprint of its assets, although as announced in April it is increasingly unlikely to achieve its 2030 carbon emissions intensity target. It is increasingly well documented that there has been slower than expected progress on all aspects of the energy transition, including green hydrogen not yet being a viable fuel source and natural gas-based DRI production not being competitive as an interim solution. The global economy is not yet achieving the pace of change required to meet the Paris Agreement. Full implementation of existing NDCs by 2030 would only cut emissions by up to 10% from 2019 levels, far short of the 28% needed for 2°C and 42% for 1.5°C.

Meanwhile the European steel market is under unprecedented pressure, with weak demand and high levels of imports.

ArcelorMittal engages regularly with the European Commission and Member States on the urgent priorities required to support the sustainability of steelmaking in Europe and its transition to lower-carbon technologies. This includes the imperative of addressing:

The high level of imports entering the European market in a market of otherwise weak demand
The effectiveness of new instruments designed to support the transition of hard to abate sectors including the CBAM
The price of electricity (switching from a blast furnace to an electric arc furnace means moving from a furnace that predominantly uses coal as its energy source to one using natural gas and electricity)

The first new electric arc furnaces will be in countries that are able to provide visibility and certainty on low-cost electricity, and ArcelorMittal announced in May its intention to build the next EAF in Dunkirk, France.

The current electricity prices in Germany are high compared both internationally and with European neighbours.

Commenting, Geert van Poelvoorde, CEO ArcelorMittal Europe, said:

“We appreciate the financing offered by the Federal government of Germany and the state of Bremen as well as the support of the state of Brandenburg for this project. But even with the financial support, the business case for moving ahead with this transformation is not strong enough, which shows the scale of the challenge.

“As it stands, the European steel industry is under unprecedented pressure to remain viable and that is without the additional costs required to decarbonize. The European Commission and Member States are taking steps to address this through the Steel and Metals Action Plan, but it cannot happen quickly enough, and I am concerned that some of the actions may not go far enough to achieve their desired purpose.

“I have been in the steel industry my entire career and I remain convinced that Europe – and Germany - can maintain a thriving steel industry – but it must act decisively to ensure its words of commitment translate into genuine supportive action.

“The most important priority right now is to ensure that there is a vibrant level of steel demand in Europe that is accessible to European steel producers. The high levels of imports are a major concern – we need imports for flat products to be limited to 15% - which means a reduction of around 50% compared with what we are seeing today.

Once that is achieved, the industry will be in a much stronger position to be able to progress with decarbonization investments.” READ MORE