New Consortium to Commercialise the Production of Sustainable Fuels for Aircraft and Ships

The basic technology, hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL), is being demonstrated in Norway, and the project builds on this by focusing on the refining processes themselves and the finished fuels.

THE PROJECT FOCUSES ON HEAVY TRANSPORT

Heavy traffic, and especially aviation and shipping, is one of the areas that face the greatest challenges in creating significant CO2 reductions that contribute to meeting national, as well as EU and global goals.

Sustainable fuels have been identified as a possible solution to this, and therefore, the consortium focuses on the technical and economic challenges of producing and marketing sustainable fuels for both sectors. The goal is for the project to provide technical data, business models and implementation scenarios for a range of value chains, ranging from input materials in the form of organic household waste and agricultural residues to the finished and ready-to-market fuels, and including quantified GHG reductions and sector coupling, especially the exploitation of green hydrogen and circular exploitation of resources.

DIFFERENT FUEL MARKETS EACH HAVE THEIR CHALLENGES

Aircraft and marine fuels are very different, and although both can be produced based on HTL bio-oil, the technical path to market is very different, meaning that the refining processes must be optimised for each. For aviation fuel, there is a complex certification procedure to ensure that the new fuels are safe to fly with, and therefore, aviation fuel requires a relatively high degree of refining and analysis to ensure that it complies with a wide range of technical parameters. On the other hand, ship fuel does not require such a high degree of refining, but a number of quality requirements are still set for engines and fuel systems to be able to handle the new fuel. For both types of fuels, the project will carry out tests in the relevant engine technologies - jet engine and diesel engine - to demonstrate the fuels’ viability in practice.

THE CONSORTIUM COVERS THE ENTIRE VALUE CHAIN

Steeper Energy ApS, which is in the process of building the world’s first HTL plant in Norway to produce bio- oil at scale from residual fractions from forestry, is participating as a technology supplier in the project.

Access to the plant in Norway means that large quantities of HTL bio-oil can be used in the project, which has so far been a bottleneck in the development of the technology.

Aalborg University, which has recently demonstrated a “prototype jet fuel” from wastewater sludge, participates as a knowledge partner and host of a big HTL pilot plant operated in collaboration with Steeper Energy ApS that can convert wastewater sludge, wood residues and organic household waste into bio- crude oil. COWI brings extensive knowledge about the technical challenges of the green transition and links the Power-to-X area to the project. Two foreign partners, DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt) from Germany and IFP Energies Nouvelles from France, participate with expert knowledge of the unique challenges of obtaining alternative fuels for aviation. In the field of marine fuel, Alfa Laval provides expert knowledge and advanced test facilities for testing fuels.

In addition to the technical partners, the consortium also has the participation of the ports of Aalborg and Aarhus, and Greenfuelhub (Switzerland) and AP Møller-Maersk in the marine fuel area, as well as the West Danish airports - Aalborg Airport, Aarhus Airport and Billund Airport - and fuel logistics partners, DCC & Shell Aviation Denmark and SkyNRG (Netherlands) in the jet fuel area. SkyNRG also brings extensive knowledge and experience of pricing mechanisms for sustainable fuels into the consortium. With the participation of Energy Cluster Denmark for dissemination and networking, the entire value chain is represented in the consortium, and it is possible to work purposefully with scenarios and new business models within production and distribution of sustainable fuels for both the maritime sector and aviation and to ensure these contribute quantitatively to the Danish climate goals.