Fluence Awarded EUR3.9M Contract for Innovative Wastewater-to-Energy System in Belgium

Fluence Corporation Limited announced today that it has received a €3.9M contract for a wastewater treatment and waste-to-energy system for its customer ArcelorMittal. Fluence will design and build these systems for ArcelorMittal’s steel mill in Ghent, Belgium, using innovative anaerobic digestion technology to produce biogas from off-gas fermentation byproducts. The Fluence system is expected to be delivered, installed and operational onsite within 18 months. ArcelorMittal is the world’s largest crude steel producer, accounting for 90 million tons of steel per year.

This will be Fluence’s first wastewater and waste-to-energy system designed specifically for use in the steel industry. Steel mill byproducts are notoriously difficult to treat to a grade that meets government effluent requirements. Fluence’s team was able to achieve the client’s desired effluent using advanced anaerobic digestion technology. By adding waste-to-energy treatment to the system, the biogas produced will be used to power the steel mill’s operations, which will in turn lower the overall operating costs.

Fluence’s Managing Director and CEO, Henry Charrabé said: “Our highly experienced team has adapted our advanced anaerobic digestion technology for this new application, bringing even more value to our customers. We hope this milestone project will be the beginning of introducing Fluence’s capabilities for similar steel mill applications around the world. As part of our global product strategy, we have already sold a number of anaerobic systems developed by Fluence Italy in Europe and South America, including applications in the poultry and fish processing industries.”

Carl De Maré, Vice President of Technology Strategy at ArcelorMittal, said: "We are excited that after several years of research and engineering, we are now progressing with the largest project of its kind within the ArcelorMittal group. This is the first application of a viable new business case where re-use of carbon is possible at large scale. We will achieve significant carbon reduction and we hope that this will lead us to a lower carbon economy. This new Carbon Smart technology illustrates ArcelorMittal’s commitment to transforming steel production and it will also further strengthen steel’s standing in the circular economy, particularly compared to other higher carbon metals like aluminum.”