Contribution to Society by Offering Eco-Products

One of the most economically viable means to realize a carbon-neutral society is to upgrade high-efficiency nonoriented (NO) and grain-oriented (GO) electrical steel sheets.
These products are used in motors for hybrid and electric vehicles as well as in transformers for power transmission and distribution, helping to reduce energy loss. The use of these products contributes to the reduction of CO₂ emissions when using hybrid cars, EVs, and home electric appliances and to efficient transmission of generated power.

In response to the increasing demand and upgrade request for these electrical steel sheets used in EVs and other products, we decided to implement measures to improve manufacturing capacity of high-efficiency non-oriented (NO) electrical steel sheets in the Setouchi Works Hanshin Area (Sakai) and the Kyushu Works Yawata Area. We have also previously announced measures to improve manufacturing capacity and quality of the electrical steel sheet in the Kyushu Works Yawata Area and the Setouchi Works Hirohata Area.

The total amount of investment into these measures will be approximately 213 billion yen in cumulative total and the investment is expected to be fully effective in the first half of fiscal 2027. The manufacturing capacity of non-oriented (NO) electrical steel sheets for eco-friendly cars is also expected to increase by about five times from the current capacity.

Nippon Steel has contributed to reduction in body weight and improvement in the safety performance of automobiles by developing advanced materials, as well as processing technologies and evaluation technologies to realize components and their structures that maximize material performance. In 2019, we started to make proposals on the NSafe™-AutoConcept (NSAC), a comprehensive solution for the development of next-generation steel vehicles to cope with the coming carbon neutral era. We are thus working with our customers to develop advanced vehicles.

Reductions in CO₂ emissions and enhanced collision safety are needed for automobiles and for that purpose, both bodyweight reduction and high strength are desired. Such needs can be satisfied by ultra-high-tensile steel sheets for vehicle bodies such as 2.0 Gpa hot stamping materials, 1470 MPa cold high-tensile sheets, and 980 MPa hot-rolling high-strength steel plates for chassis.

We have made these high-tensile steel lineups practical and have reduced the body weight of steel cars by 30% with our proposals on structure and processing method as well as various evaluation technologies. This has enabled steel cars to have a similar weight to that of all-aluminum cars and the provision of higher collision safety performance.

Moreover, we began proposing NSafe^®-AutoConcept ECO³ (NSAC Eco-cubic), a new concept that has deepened the NSAC’s weight reduction technologies. This has enabled us to make optimal solution proposals adapted to customers’ forward-looking automaking (e.g., proposal of parts integration, using steel) from the perspectives of CO₂ emissions reduction through weight reduction and LCA; cost reduction; and optimal production systems, to meet diverse customer needs in the midst of more innovative automaking, including rapidly advancing electrification of vehicles.

SuperDyma™ is an eco-friendly building material that is highly corrosionresistant and lasts four times longer than conventional products. In particular it has recently been adopted for the supporting mount of solar power panels in various parts of Japan.

KATAMA™ SP is a simple pavement material that makes use of steel slag’s characteristics of compacting in reaction to water. Due to its weed control effect, KATAMA™ SP is used for pavement at mega-solar panel power stations, to help maintain power generation efficiency and reduce mowing.

Unlike onshore wind farms, which cause wind noise and emit low frequency wavelength sound, offshore wind farms are drawing attention as Japan, an island country, has a long coast line and strong offshore wind tends to be steady. The Nipponsteel Group is developing high-strength, corrosion-resistant steel material with good workability, as well as the construction technology, contributing to improvement of offshore wind farms.

Geothermal power generation is promising as renewable energy use of which results in low CO₂ emissions. Nippon Steel Engineering in the Nipponsteel Group has been responsible for the construction of production equipment and pipelines on nine of 17 large-scale geothermal power plants in Japan. The company thus has abundant construction achievements and knowhow.
Leveraging the technology accumulated in manufacturing OCTGs for deep-sea underwater oilfields where the steel is exposed to a highly-corrosive environment, Nipponsteel also provides seamless pipes, suitable to be used in geothermal power generation, which also involves a similar high-temperature, high-pressure, highly-corrosive environment.

This is a power generation method to make upper and lower reservoirs and release the pumped-storage water in the upper reservoir to the lower reservoir through turbines to produce electric power. In order to raise generation efficiency, high-strength, high-grade steel pipes were required to withstand increased water pressure due to greater elevation of water. Nipponsteel has successfully developed and commercialized Japan’s first 100kg-class steel used for a pressurized water pipe.

Since 2019, we have been actively disclosing data of our products’ LCA-based emissions to the environment through SuMPO EPD (formerly EcoLeaf).
An EPD is an environmental label that is compliant with the international standard ISO 14025. It calculates the environmental burdens (CO₂ emissions, and others) of each product in accordance with the ISO 20915 standard, including raw material extraction and transportation, product manufacturing, and recycling effects. The result is issued for each product after verification and certification by a third party (SuMPO).

EPDs disclose information on the global warming potential (GWP) and other various environmental burden values. When calculating CO₂ emissions upstream of Scope 3 at customers who purchase our products, more realistic primary data, rather than secondary data such as databases, can be used.

With these EPDs publicized, not only can our customers calculate their environmental burdens upstream of Scope 3, but they can also use carbon footprint and other data for the LCA-based assessment of their products.

We have obtained more than 80 SuMPO EPD certifications covering almost all our products, which overwhelmingly exceeds the number issued by other companies in the same industry.

EPDs are also used as the basic data for emission reductions required by NSCarbolex™ Neutral. Since we have disclosed EPDs for almost all our products, NSCarbolex Neutral is applicable to almost all our products.