Finding
The US already makes most of its steel with electricity; the global question is Chinese scrap
Electric arc furnaces made 30.3% of the world's 1.85 billion metric tons of steel in 2025 (worldsteel). The United States is at about 72%, built on scrap and new mills such as Steel Dynamics' 3-million-ton flat-rolled mill in Sinton, Texas. China, which makes more than half the world's steel, is at about 10%.
China has the furnaces but not the feed. Its arc furnaces ran at under half their capacity in 2025 while blast furnaces ran near 89%, because domestic scrap is still scarce and scrap imports fell. Beijing's target of 15% EAF steel by 2025 was missed; the 20% target for 2030 depends on scrap arriving as China's postwar building stock reaches end of life.
An arc furnace melts scrap or direct reduced iron (DRI) with graphite electrodes at about 1,800 °C and cuts CO2 by 70-80% against a blast furnace when the power is clean. It is also one of the largest and least steady loads on any grid: a 150-metric ton furnace swings tens of megawatts within seconds, so new mills come with dedicated substations, static VAR compensators and, increasingly, batteries. Making new steel from iron ore without coal requires hydrogen DRI ahead of the furnace.
Vendors
Furnace, electrode and power-quality suppliers
Furnace builders, the graphite electrode makers every furnace consumes, and the flicker-compensation and transformer suppliers that let a grid carry an arc furnace. Active companies first, then pilots, research groups and companies that exited.
| Company | Products | HQ | Technology | Reference sites | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CERI (MCC Group) | Arc furnaces and steel plant engineering | China | AC EAF; EPC contractor | active | |
| CISDI (China Minmetals) | Arc furnaces and full steel plant engineering | China | AC EAF; EPC contractor | active | |
| Danieli | AC and DC arc furnaces, Digimelter, Q-One power feeder, complete minimills | Italy | AC and DC EAF; Q-One power-electronic feeder | active | |
| JP Steel Plantech | ECOARC shaft-type arc furnace | Japan | Continuous preheating shaft EAF | active | |
| Primetals Technologies | EAF Quantum (shaft preheating) and EAF Ultimate | UK | Shaft scrap preheating; high-power AC EAF | active: Owned by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries | |
| SMS group | AC and DC arc furnaces, CSP and minimill lines | Germany | AC and DC EAF | Big River Steel, Osceola, Arkansas | active |
| Tenova (Techint) | Consteel continuous-charging EAF, iEAF controls | Italy | Continuous scrap preheating and charging | active |
| Company | Products | HQ | Technology | Reference sites | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fangda Carbon | Graphite electrodes | China | UHP electrodes; largest Chinese maker | active | |
| GrafTech | Ultra-high-power graphite electrodes; Seadrift needle coke | US | Petroleum needle coke, vertically integrated | active | |
| Graphite India | Graphite electrodes | India | UHP electrodes | active | |
| HEG | Graphite electrodes | India | UHP electrodes | active | |
| Resonac (ex-Showa Denko) | Graphite electrodes | Japan | UHP electrodes | active | |
| Tokai COBEX | Graphite electrodes and cathodes | Germany | UHP electrodes | active: Tokai Carbon subsidiary |
| Company | Products | HQ | Technology | Reference sites | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ABB | ArcSave electromagnetic stirring, furnace drives | Switzerland | Electromagnetic stirring | active | |
| Hitachi Energy | SVC Light STATCOM flicker compensation, furnace transformers | Switzerland | STATCOM | active | |
| Siemens Energy | SVC and STATCOM flicker compensation, furnace transformers | Germany | SVC, STATCOM | active | |
| TBEA | Furnace transformers | China | EAF and SAF transformers | active |
Constraints
What limits arc furnace steel
| Constraint | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Scrap supply | Quality and volume limit what EAFs can make without DRI |
| Graphite electrodes | Needle coke supply concentrated in a few producers, China and Japan |
| Grid capacity | Dedicated substations; flicker and harmonics control |
| Clean power | CO2 savings depend on the grid mix |
Sources
Sources and scope
- Scope
- Electric Arc Furnaces for Steel
- Sources
- worldsteel World Steel in Figures (2025, 2026); GMK Center on China EAF utilization; Steel Dynamics filings
- Updated
- October 2026