New tech needed to meet EU SAF mandate: Correction

Corrects EU jet fuel demand projection in paragraph 4

Technologies now under development are required to be in commercial use beyond 2030 to fulfil the EU's proposed mandate on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) up to 2050, according to biojet producer SkyNRG.

In its latest Market Outlook on SAF, it said that European supply can match EU demand to 2030, provided that already-announced production capacity materialises and either additional capacity is developed or SAF is imported from outside the EU. Then rapid deployment of technologies such as Fischer-Tropsch (FT), Alcohol-to-Jet (AtJ) and Power-to-Liquid (PtL), as well as cellulosic feedstock mobilisation and scale-up of green hydrogen production capacity and of renewable electricity are all needed, it said.

The EU proposed a SAF blending mandate last week, as part of a wider package of climate and energy legislation. The proposal applies to aviation fuel suppliers and means that aircraft landing at EU airports would be required to use blended jet fuel with a mandated SAF share of 2pc by 2025, 5pc by 2030, 20pc by 2035, 32pc by 2040 and 63pc by 2050. Synthetic aviation fuels, including hydrogen, would rise from a 0.7pc share by 2030 to 11pc by 2045 and 28pc by 2050. SAF produced from food and feed crops is not eligible.

SkyNRG expects SAF demand of 1mn t in 2025, 3.5mn t in 2030 and 30mn t in 2050, with demand for synthetic SAF at 13.3mn t in 2050. This assumes that EU jet fuel demand recovers to pre-Covid levels in 2024 and remains constant at 47.4mn t/yr beyond that. Global SAF production accounted for less than 0.1pc of total jet fuel demand last year at only around 100,000t, SkyNRG said.

There are no commercial or demonstration-scale facilities operational for SAF production using either AtJ, FT or PtL. Around 300 SAF plants with an average biojet production of around 100,000 t/yr will be needed to fulfil the 2050 mandate, according to SkyNRG's estimates.

This will come at a cost, and scaling-up new technologies to industrial levels poses several challenges, TotalEnergies' chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said this week.

"Green hydrogen is three to four times the price of normal hydrogen… we are working on these avenues but it is in the medium- and long-term, not before 2040-50," he told French state-owned Radio France. "We know how to do it, but not to industrialise it. The decade to come, it is on biofuels based on animal fats," he said. TotalEnergies began SAF production at its La Mede biorefinery in southern France earlier this year, utilising used cooking oil (UCO) and other waste and residues as feedstock. The company plans to produce up to 170,000 t/yr of SAF at its Grandpuits refinery near Paris from 2024.

Provided that all announced capacity materialises, SkyNRG expects that the EU SAF mandate can be fulfilled with European-based production up until 2027, and until 2030 by "yet-to-be-announced SAF capacity, capacity switches from announced renewable diesel production, or by importing SAF". The majority of the announced plants until 2027 use HEFA technology and co-processing from waste and fats, meaning that Europe will be "heavily dependent" on non-European countries to obtain the feedstocks.

Several European countries already have implemented or proposed national mandates, some of which are more ambitious than that proposed by the EU and they could form a "top-up".

Norway introduced a 0.5pc SAF blending mandate last year, which will increase to 30pc by 2030. Sweden set a target for jet fuel suppliers to reduce GHG emissions by 0.8pc in July-December this year, rising gradually to a 27pc cut in 2030. France will introduce a blending mandate of 1pc in 2022, rising to 2pc by 2025 and 5pc by 2030.

By Giulia Squadrin