DONAWITZ, AUSTRIA / EuroWire / – Austria’s shift toward lower-carbon industry advanced with progress on voestalpine’s new electric arc furnace at Donawitz, one of two major steel decarbonization projects under the company’s greentec steel program. The plant forms part of a move away from coal-heavy blast furnace production toward electric steelmaking powered by green electricity. It also links one of Austria’s main industrial sectors to the country’s climate neutrality goal for 2040.
The Donawitz furnace stands in Styria, a long-established steelmaking region that supplies high-grade steel for rail, automotive and engineering uses. The project will add electric steel production to the existing site from 2027. voestalpine says the Donawitz unit will produce about 850,000 tons of CO2-reduced steel a year once operations start. The company is also building a larger electric arc furnace at Linz.
Electric arc furnaces melt scrap steel and other metallic inputs with electricity rather than relying mainly on coke and coal. That change can cut direct emissions from steelmaking when the power supply comes from renewable sources. At Donawitz, the new furnace will work alongside the current blast furnace route during the transition. The company says this mixed setup will allow one blast furnace to close as early as 2029.
Electric steelmaking moves into core production
The Donawitz project is part of a 1.5 billion euro investment package approved for the first phase of greentec steel. Together, the Linz and Donawitz furnaces are designed to produce about 2.5 million tons of CO2-reduced steel each year from 2027. The two sites account for a major share of Austria’s steel output. Their conversion marks one of the country’s largest industrial climate programs.
The first phase aims to cut voestalpine’s direct carbon emissions by about 30% by 2029 compared with 2019 levels. The company has said that equals nearly 4 million tons of CO2 a year. It also says the reduction represents about 5% of Austria’s total annual emissions. Those figures place the project among the most significant private-sector climate measures in the country.
Austria links steel industry to 2040 climate target
Austria has set a national target to reach climate neutrality by 2040. Heavy industry remains central to that goal because steelmaking needs high heat and large energy inputs. The Donawitz furnace does not end blast furnace production at the site on its own. It begins a staged shift in which electric production takes a larger role in steel output while older coal-based units are reduced.
Danieli is supplying technology for the Donawitz electric arc furnace, while the Linz furnace forms the second part of the same first-stage program. The wider plan keeps steel production in Austria while lowering emissions from one of its hardest-to-abate industries. voestalpine has set a separate target to reach net zero CO2 emissions in steel production by 2050.