The European Steel Association (EUROFER) has stated that the European steel industry welcomes the European Commission's communication on energy efficiency as a contribution to climate protection, energy security and innovation.
According to EUROFER, for the European steel industry an absolute cap on energy consumption is the wrong approach as it does not take account of economic and technical developments. To decrease energy costs the European steel industry has already reduced energy consumption in the past 40 years by 50 percent. A cap on energy consumption may even hamper innovation ability because improvements such as anti-corrosive coating can only be realized with higher energy consumption in the production phase.
According to the new energy efficiency targets, the EU will achieve energy savings of around 18-19 percent by 2020 and 30 percent by 2030.