Celsa Cardiff is installing a giant electrical device called a static VAR compensator to make its steel-melting furnace faster and more efficient. The problem is that the electric arc furnace, which melts 100% UK scrap metal into steel billets, wastes energy as reactive power. This slows down the entire production line—the melt shop bottlenecks the rolling mills that follow. Meanwhile, the UK exports 7–8 million tonnes of scrap steel each year, only to reimport processed steel from abroad, adding unnecessary transport emissions. If the static VAR compensator works as expected, it will reduce melting time for the same energy input, boosting output by roughly 1.2 million tonnes of finished product annually. Faster melting also lets the downstream mills run more efficiently, cutting their natural gas and electricity use per tonne of steel. The strategic impact is a shift toward domestic processing: more UK scrap stays in the UK, reducing carbon from global shipping and keeping high-value steel production within the economy. This is applied engineering—a targeted fix to an industrial bottleneck with direct consequences for energy use, carbon emissions, and supply chain resilience.
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Celsa (Manufacturing) UK is the largest manufacturer of steel reinforcement in the UK as well as one of the largest manufacturers of other steel long products. There are 3 distinct processing areas at the site: the Melt Shop, where scrap steel is sorted, processed and melted into billets through the use of an electric arc furnace (EAF) -- a 33kV system that sends current through electrodes to melt 100% UK scrap metal with electricity; the Section Mill where the billets are processed into merchant bar and light sections such as those seen in roof construction; and the Rod & Bar Mill where the billets are rolled into reinforcing products and wire rod with one use being rebar mesh in concrete foundations. From these facilities in Cardiff, CELSA produces and delivers around 1.2 million tonnes of finished product each year, mainly supplying the UK and Irish Markets, and is 100% recyclable at the end of its life. This project looks to install a large piece of equipment, a static VAR compensator (SVC), to the high voltage EAF and reduce the reactive power of the system. This in turn will reduce the time it takes to melt steel within the EAF and thereby increasing the production output for the same energy as before an SVC is installed; it is anticipated to also improve the whole Melt Shop natural gas and low voltage electricity efficiency as well. As the scrap melting times and output of the Melt Shop bottlenecks the downstream processing mills, this increased production will also enable the speed up of the Section Mill and Rod & Bar Mill's processes and thereby reduce their energy consumption per tonne of steel output both for natural gas and electricity. Strategically this is also a highly beneficial project to the UK as a whole since currently 7-8Mt of UK scrap is exported, processed outside of the UK, and then reimported needlessly. Instead, this project will enable an increase of domestic scrap processing and production of steel with a high value to the UK economy and the natural reduction in carbon associated with the extra transport of scrap around the world.
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