Europe’s first plant for hydrogen-based aviation fuel

A consortium of energy and engineering companies known as Norsk e-Fuel is planning Europe’s first commercial plant for hydrogen-based renewable aviation fuel in Norway.

The consortium is made up of renewable energy company Sunfire, carbon capture technology firm Climeworks, engineering group Paul Wurth and the green investor Valinor. The project will use renewable energy, electrolysis, water and CO2 captured from air to produce renewable fuel for the aviation sector, a technology which could help to reduce carbon emissions from flights.

The plant will have a production capacity of 10mn litres a year when it starts operation in 2023 before being expanded to produce 100mn litres of renewable fuel, hopefully before 2026. Following this expansion, the consortium said the plant would save 250,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year. Emissions from the main airlines in Europe were 68mn tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2019, according to European Commission data.