Investigation of means of reducing electricity consumption in the Tanzania iron and steel industries: a case of Dar es Salaam region

The research presented in this report focused on investigating means of reducing consumption of electricity in the Tanzania iron and steel industries. The iron and steel industry is one of the largest energy consuming manufacturing sectors in Tanzania due to the fact that the technology used is old and inefficient. Furnaces used to melt iron scrap consume high electricity which is around 0.85MWh/Ton. Electricity demand does not fulfill the country’s need since there is frequent unexpected power cut offs all over the country. Observations, interviews and questionnaires were used to determine the electricity consumption, furnace capacity, sources of heat, maximum temperature of furnace and maximum temperature of hot gases. Data collected was analysed to determine electricity consumption in MWh/Ton. Figures from monthly electricity consumption for all iron and steel industries were determined and the energy consumption to produce one tonne of semi-finished steel from scrap recycling was calculated. The total billings of the selected iron and steel industries were calculated to indicate the company, which has the highest percentage consumption. Using a scoring matrix, the selection of the best preheating technology was done. Energy to produce one tonne of steel through preheating was calculated. From the results the energy saved during preheating technology is 21.63% of the total energy used. This is the target recovered in this research.