Across the steel and mining sectors, the momentum toward hydrogen substitution is accelerating. Producers are running green-hydrogen DRI pilots, hydrogen-ready burner trials, and hybrid-fuel smelting tests, often in partnership with technology suppliers and energy providers.
While these pilots remain small relative to full-scale production, they are strategically important: they demonstrate that hydrogen can support industrial-grade reduction, melting, and heat delivery. The challenge is no longer whether hydrogen can be used it is whether its use can be measured, verified, and traced through the production chain in a way that stands up to customer audits and regulatory scrutiny.
The core limitation today is data. Hydrogen is rarely used in isolation during early-stage pilots; it is blended with natural gas or coal-derived syngas in transitional ratios that shift throughout the day. Because the blend composition directly affects reaction chemistry, temperature profiles, and carbon intensity, plants need a reliable way to bind fuel-mix information to each heat, tap, batch, or coil.
Traditional MES and ERP systems were not designed for hybrid fuel environments, leaving production teams with incomplete or non-auditable records of hydrogen usage. This gap represents a major obstacle for any plant seeking to market “green steel” or “lower carbon” metal with confidence.
Introducing hydrogen into DRI, smelting, and high-temperature refining adds a layer of thermochemical complexity that conventional process controls do not capture. Hydrogen’s higher reduction potential, lower molecular weight, and distinct heat-transfer properties change furnace behaviour in measurable ways. Even modest substitution levels alter the reduction kinetics in DRI modules, shift oxidation patterns in smelting furnaces, and introduce new burner flame characteristics in reheat or melting operations.
Because pilots typically operate in hybrid mode, reaction profiles fluctuate constantly as hydrogen proportions vary. These variations affect not only furnace temperature and stability, but also the carbon footprint embedded in each heat. When a coil, billet, matte stream, or DRI batch is claimed as low carbon, its carbon intensity must reflect the precise fraction of hydrogen used at the moment of production. Without granular, heat-specific fuel attribution, low-carbon claims collapse into estimation and estimation is not auditable.
A modern MES is uniquely positioned to solve this problem because it sits at the intersection of production sequencing, energy inputs, material genealogy, and heat-level metadata. When hydrogen is introduced, MES becomes the system that binds fuel-mix information to each production event. It captures the ratio of hydrogen to natural gas or coal-derived fuel, aligns it with furnace setpoints and recipe variations, and logs the corresponding operational parameters. This ensures that every batch, heat, or charge carries a verifiable fuel history.
More importantly, MES can map these hybrid-fuel inputs to product carbon intensity calculations. By integrating real-time or scheduled fuel-blend data, MES enables heat-by-heat PCI estimation, ensuring that green steel claims reflect actual fuel origin rather than average plant-level assumptions. This is essential for CBAM compliance, EPD generation, upstream-downstream carbon allocation, and customer-specific low-carbon certification. Without MES handling this attribution, low-carbon product claims are functionally non-verifiable.
Hydrogen substitution demands more than operational readiness; it requires precise production scheduling that matches fuel availability. Hydrogen supply whether produced onsite, delivered through tube trailers, or generated from electrolyzers does not always align with constant furnace demand. MES helps production teams schedule hydrogen-enabled heats strategically: routing specific melts, charges, or DRI batches to time windows when hydrogen feedstock is available. This ensures that carbon-intensity improvements are real, not theoretical.
At the same time, hydrogen-enabled recipes differ from standard ones. They require adjusted burner curves, modified reduction parameters, new safety interlocks, and tailored smelting or heating trajectories. MES manages these recipe variations, ensuring that hydrogen blends are applied only to the heats designed for them. It creates an audit trail proving which recipes were used, when, and under what fuel conditions something plants cannot achieve through manual logs or standalone control systems.
The ultimate requirement for green-steel customers from automotive OEMs to construction groups is not “hydrogen was used,” but “prove that hydrogen reduced the embedded CO₂ in this specific product.” That proof depends on accurate, heat-level emissions attribution. Hydrogen blending complicates this because emissions must be allocated proportionally to fuel contribution. MES becomes the system of record that binds fuel input, energy intensity, and process outcomes to product genealogy.
By integrating with energy meters, flow meters, plant historians, and carbon calculation engines, MES converts operational data into auditable emissions records. This ensures that every slab, coil, billet, or matte batch can be accompanied by a defensible carbon intensity certificate. In this context, MES is not just a production system it becomes the carbon truth layer that transforms hydrogen experiments into certifiable low-carbon products.
DaVinci supports hydrogen pilots through MES-level capabilities designed specifically for hybrid-fuel operations. Its architecture can ingest fuel-mix metadata, manage hydrogen-aware recipes, synchronize production with hydrogen availability, and compute heat-level PCI in real time. It ensures that every hydrogen-assisted heat is fully traceable, and that every low-carbon claim is backed by transparent, audit-ready data.
By embedding emissions attribution directly into the production workflow, DaVinci closes the gap between hydrogen technology and carbon verification - the exact gap that prevents many steelmakers from commercializing low-carbon metal at scale. The Strategic Insight: Hydrogen Makes Steel Greener, but MES Makes It Credible
Hydrogen pilots prove technical feasibility. MES proves commercial and regulatory viability. As the industry moves toward hydrogen-enabled smelting and DRI, the plants that succeed will be the ones that can verify not just their carbon reductions.
Hydrogen reduces emissions. MES ensures the world can trust the numbers.