Austria is leading international research project on conditions and opportunities for Sustainable Aviation Fuels

Together with six international partners, BEST GmbH leads an exchange on stakeholders, raw materials and possible production routes of sustainable aviation fuels and derives best-practice examples.

Sustainable aviation fuels have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the aviation sector and thus contribute to ambitious national and international targets such as the European Green Deal, the reduction of net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 compared to 1990.

While new propulsion technologies have yet to be developed and brought to market, sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) can deliver greenhouse gas reductions today. Currently, SAFs are the only way to reduce a rise in aviation emissions in the long term. However, this potential is currently hardly used, as the share of such fuels amounts to only 0.05% of global kerosene consumption. The obstacle to upscaling is price, as SAFs are up to 3 to 9 times more expensive than conventional kerosene, depending on the production route and raw material. The choice of a suitable feedstock is influenced by factors such as energy consumption during production, land use, and food-fuel conflicts.

Austria, as consortium leader of the international research project of the Advanced Motorfuels TCP of the International Energy Agency, is making an important contribution through collaborative research and development work, identification of stakeholders and experts, assessment of the national situations of the participants and stimulating an exchange of information on the challenges of scaling up SAF. BEST GmbH as the project leader is responsible for managing the tasks, coordination and communication of the activities, which will be made available to the public at regular intervals through postings, workshops and online seminars on project results and ongoing work packages.

The requirements for the consortium of at least 3 participants could be more than doubled due to the relevance of the topic. Besides Germany, Denmark and Switzerland, Brazil, China and the USA are also represented. The research work will provide important answers to questions such as production routes, production possibilities, raw materials and resources of all international partners.

This will make it possible to identify best practice examples and to derive recommendations for policy instruments.