French global airport operator Groupe ADP has invested $20 million in US-based LanzaJet, an emerging international producer of sustainable aviation fuel. The investment was made by ADP International, a subsidiary of the group, as part of a strategy to transform its airports into energy hubs able to provide electricity, SAF and low-carbon hydrogen. The investment follows LanzaJet’s recent activation of the Freedom Pines facility in Soperton, Georgia, the world’s first ethanol-to-fuel plant, capable of both SAF and renewable diesel production. Groupe ADP is the third company to invest in LanzaJet this year, after the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund and the world’s biggest low-cost airline, Texas-based Southwest. LanzaJet has global expansion ambitions, with plans to develop plants elsewhere in America, as well as in Europe and Asia. It is also a partner in a new SAF project planned for Queensland, Australia.

The latest investment by Groupe ADP  is part of a plan to supply SAF at competitive prices in France and globally, and specifically to help strengthen LanzaJet’s production and deployment capabilities.  

In addition to the three major airports in Paris – Charles de Gaulle, Orly and Le Bourget – Groupe ADP has management contracts or concessions at 23 more airports, including through investments in Turkey’s TAV Airports and Indian operator GMR Airports. Among the hubs it manages are those in three capitals: Zagreb, Amman and Santiago.

“Low-carbon aviation will not take off without the transformation of airports into energy hubs with a range of low-carbon solutions,” explained Augustin de Romanet, CEO of Groupe ADP. “The airport revolution must happen now, and it is underway in Paris.

“As the world’s leading airport operator, we want to go further and act at source by supporting the production of sustainable aviation fuel, investing directly in LanzaJet, an innovative company able to deploy its technology responsibly around the world, and adapting to local waste to make these new fuels available everywhere.”

Groupe ADP was also the first airport company to invest in the United Airlines Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund, an investment fund established by the world’s third-biggest airline to support the development of SAF. 

LanzaJet is aiming to produce 1 billion gallons of SAF (3.8 billion litres) per year by 2030 and, from the second half of this year, 10 million gallons (38 million litres) per year at its first US facility, Freedom Pines, which uses alcohol produced from feedstocks including municipal waste and forestry and agricultural residues.

“We continue to lay the foundation for building the SAF industry across the entire value chain,” said LanzaJet CEO Jimmy Samartzis. “With this significant contribution from Groupe ADP, a first-of-its-kind in the industry, we will expand LanzaJet’s technology deployment and global growth.

“Together, we will work towards expanding sustainable aviation fuel production and logistics into airports to support airlines and Groupe ADP customers worldwide as the industry works collaboratively to decarbonise.” 

The Groupe ADP investment closely follows another from Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, which also supports LanzaJet’s SAF development and deployment. The two companies will additionally explore how Microsoft’s data and artificial intelligence technology can support LanzaJet’s corporate functions and ethanol-to-SAF process technology.

Details of the latest investment were not disclosed, but in 2022 Microsoft provided a $50 million project finance investment to support construction of the Freedom Pines facility.

“Our continued alignment with Microsoft allows LanzaJet to build our team and capacity at pace to support global deployment of our leading sustainable fuels process technology,” said Samartzis. “Microsoft has played a significant role in making SAF production a reality in the United States, and this investment re-emphasises its urgent commitment to decarbonisation of hard-to-abate sectors.”

Through its investment in LanzaJet, Microsoft can also gain access to SAF and renewable diesel, and SAF certificates (SAFc) from future LanzaJet projects to progress its own 2030 carbon neutrality targets.

“Microsoft is proud to support LanzaJet with our investment in the growth of its sustainable fuel technology business,” said Brandon Middaugh, senior director of Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund. “Microsoft is investing in partners who share our commitment to advancing a net-zero economy and who are building the market for critical solutions like SAF and renewable diesel.”

Also this year, LanzaJet has received a $30 million investment from Southwest Airlines, as part of a broader deal in which the two will collaborate on developing a SAF production facility in the US. That project will progress the operations of another energy company in which Southwest is invested, SAFFiRE Renewables, which specialises in converting corn stover to ethanol.

Other investors and funders in LanzaJet include All Nippon Airways, Breakthrough Energy, British Airways, Lanzatech, Mitsui & Co, Shell and Suncor Energy.

Photo: The LanzaJet Freedom Pines plant

Tony Harrington

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The United Airlines Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund, which was launched five months ago with more than $100 million in investments from United and five partners, has increased in size to $200 million with the addition of eight new partners: American Express Global Business Travel, Aramco Ventures, Aviation Capital Group, Bank of America, Boston Consulting Group, Groupe ADP, Hawaiian Airlines and JetBlue Ventures. The fund is a way for companies and consumers to come together and increase the supply of sustainable aviation fuel through the support of startups. The new corporate members join inaugural partners Air Canada, Boeing, GE Aerospace, JPMorgan Chase and Honeywell. United’s customers also have the option to contribute to supplement the airline’s investment in the fund when they book flights and since the fund launched, more than 60,000 customers have contributed over $200,000. To date, United has invested in the future production of over five billion gallons of SAF – the most of any airline in the world, it says, with existing investments moved into the new fund.

“While United can’t decarbonise the airline industry alone, we can use our leadership and credibility in this space to rally other to join us,” said Michael Leskinen, President of United Airlines Ventures, with the airline saying it will continue to recruit corporations across industries to join the fund and will prioritise investment in new technology, advanced fuel sources and proven producers in order to help scale the supply of SAF. Partners also have the potential to gain preferential access to environmental attributes associated with United’s future supply of SAF.

“As companies across the globe are increasingly looking for ways to reduce their environmental impact from flying, the UAV Sustainable Flight Fund presents a unique opportunity,” Leskinen added. “Instead of fighting over the current limited supply of SAF, with our partners, we’re working collaboratively to help scale the SAF industry itself, and to get an equity stake in groundbreaking technology while doing it.”

Through the fund, United intends to invest in a variety of SAF feedstocks and technologies. In the past two years, UAV has made investments in or signed purchase agreements with companies using a variety of ingredients and technologies to produce SAF, including feedstocks like ethanol, animal byproducts, forestry and crop waste, and municipal waste. This is in addition to early-stage, promising technologies such as synthetic biology and power-to-liquids, incorporating renewable power, hydrogen and carbon capture processes.

SAF companies to date receiving investment from UAV include Alder Fuels, Cemvita, Dimensional Energy, Fulcrum BioEnergy, Next Renewable Fuels, Svante and Viridos.

Following an investment in sodium-ion battery-maker Natron Energy, UAV this month announced another electric battery investment, this time with Electric Power Systems, a company producing battery technology that can potentially be used for a broad suite of aerospace applications. Rather than producing battery cells, the company says its compatible module technology can be adapted to support a variety of batteries, that could allow United to consider its modules for a number of near-term applications. EPS aims to provide a whole battery ‘ecosystem’ for aviation, from the packs on aircraft to charging stations on the ground.

United is exploring options to move its pilot training academy, Aviate, away from internal combustion-powered training aircraft to electric ones. EPS says its powertrain could serve as the core propulsion system for a family of future electric aircraft concepts, starting with an electric trainer and scaling to larger variants as technology advances. Additionally, United has more than 12,000 pieces of motorised ground equipment across its operations, of which about one third are currently electric, and EPS’s battery modules could potentially be deployed in support of several uses.

Photo: United Airlines

Christopher Surgenor

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Global oil producer ExxonMobil and Finland’s Neste, producer of sustainable aviation fuel from waste residues, have partnered to provide commercial-scale distribution of SAF in France, in line with a 1% blending mandate which took effect in the country on 1 January. Through this deal, Exxon Mobil will distribute aviation fuel that includes a 30% of SAF produced by Neste from feedstock including used cooking oil and animal fat waste, reports Tony Harrington. The Exxon-Neste collaboration to provide “a continuous and scalable supply of SAF into France” is the latest in a series of initiatives taken in Europe to help meet escalating SAF blending requirements. Among other measures, Latvia’s Air Baltic recently operated a flight from Helsinki to Riga using a 37% blend of Neste SAF. The airline also revealed that its use of SAF increased by 20% in 2021 and announced plans to further boost its use of sustainable fuels in 2022.

Charles Amyot, ExxonMobil’s lead country manager in France, said that through the new collaboration with Neste to provide SAF at major airports in France, the oil company was “delivering solutions that enable customers to meet product performance requirements while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.” Jonathan Wood, Neste’s VP Europe, Renewable Aviation, said the company’s drop-in SAF was “readily available” to the aviation industry as it continued to decarbonise operations. “This supply agreement is an important milestone for Neste, and we are excited to support ExxonMobil.”

France is the third European nation to introduce a SAF blending mandate. Beyond the new 1% SAF requirement for all commercial flights from French airports, the country has legislated an increase to 2% by 2025 and 5% by 2030, as part of the EU’s European Green Deal. 

Neste commented: “Sustainable aviation fuel is recognised globally as the most feasible option to significantly reduce aviation emissions in the near term. Through SAF mandates and partnerships like this, we will together drive the increased use of SAF and help build momentum in tackling aviation’s emission reduction challenge.”

From a 2021 capacity to produce 100,000 tonnes of SAF from 10 types of waste and residue raw materials, Neste plans to increase its global output 15-fold to around 1.5 million tonnes by 2023 through expansion of its Singapore and Rotterdam refineries. Singapore is expected to produce up to 1 million tonnes of SAF by the first quarter of 2023, while up 500,00 tonnes more will come from Rotterdam.   

The ExxonMobil and Neste announcement said the companies would supply SAF to “the largest airports in France” but did not specify which gateways it would support or where the SAF would be produced.

Separately, Groupe ADP, which operates airports including the country’s two largest hubs, Paris Charles De Gaulle and Orly, has announced that it is a stakeholder in six SAF development projects in France. “The goal is to develop, by 2025 at the latest, sustainable fuel production in France capable of serving Paris airports,” said Amélie Lummaux, Chief Officer of Sustainable Development and Public Affairs at Groupe ADP.

In May 2021, Air France, in partnership with oil company Total, Airbus and Groupe ADP, operated the first long haul-flight using French-produced SAF, an Airbus A350 service from Charles De Gaulle Airport to Montreal, Canada. The 16% SAF blend, produced from cooking oil, was manufactured by Total at its Le Mède biorefinery in southern France, and its Oudalle facility, near Le Havre. By 2024, Total has pledged to produce SAF at its Grandpuits zero crude complex near Paris.

The recent Air Baltic SAF flight, on the 380-kilometre sector between Helsinki and Riga, was operated with an Airbus A220-300, which incorporated a 37% blend of SAF produced from animal fats and used cooking oils – the largest volume of sustainable fuel the airline has used on any flight, and just shy of the 38% EU aviation blending mandate set for 2045. The airline, which operates a single-type fleet of 32 A220-300s between the Baltic region and 70 destinations in Europe, the Middle East and the CIS, has declared its intention to become a sustainability leader in European aviation, with a strategy heavily based on the use of this highly-efficient aircraft type and increasing use of SAFs. Air Baltic is the largest operator of the A220-300 and has firm orders for 18 more, plus up to 30 options or purchase rights.

Also in Europe, and in partnership with Malaysia’s national energy company, Petronas, Malaysia Airlines used a 38% blend of Neste SAF on its recent first flight with sustainable aviation fuel, an Airbus A330 service from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur (see article).

Air France has carried out the first long-haul passenger flight to use sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) produced in Total’s French plants. The Air France A350 flew yesterday from Paris-CDG to Montreal with a fuel blend made up of 16% SAF produced from used cooking oil at Total’s La Mède biorefinery in southern France and at its Oudalle factory near Le Havre. The use of the ISCC-certified 100% French SAF avoided 20 tonnes of CO2 emissions, reported the airline. The initiative was a collaboration of Air France-KLM, Total, Airbus and the Paris airports operator Groupe ADP. The partners said that by developing and supporting France’s first industrial SAF production, this would pave the way for France to drive innovation in the industry’s energy and environmental transition. The country has introduced legislation that calls for aircraft to use at least 1% SAF by 2022 from all flights originating in France, with a wider EU ambition expected to mandate a ramp up to 2% by 2025 and 5% by 2030 as part of the European Green Deal. Meanwhile, Air bp has delivered SAF to Clermont-Ferrand Auvergne Airport in France, its first ongoing supply of the fuel in the country.

Commenting on the Air France flight, Benjamin Smith, CEO of Air France-KLM, said: “France currently has the opportunity to position itself as a leader in the production and use of sustainable fuels and we are doing everything possible to contribute to this with our partners. Supporting the emergence of an economically viable French aviation biofuel sector for all the parties involved is a strategic priority for the country and the group.”

Smith added that fleet renewal together with SAF constituted the airline group’s main lever in the medium term for achieving its target of halving CO2 emissions per passenger/km by 2030. Between 2014 and 2016, Air France carried out 78 flights powered by a 10% SAF blend in collaboration with a Total affiliate and the group said it intends to strengthen leadership in SAF in the years ahead, while contributing to research on future generations of aircraft.

To meet French SAF blending requirements, Total reported it will also produce SAF at its Grandpuits zero-crude platform near Paris as from 2024.

“After successfully launching SAF production at our facilities in France last March, we are continuing to adapt our industrial facilities to prepare for the growing demand from the aviation industry in the coming decade,” said Total CEO Patrick Pouyanné. “By directly reducing the carbon intensity of the energy products used by our aviation industry customers, we are actively working with them to achieve our ambition to get to net zero by 2050, together with society.”

The A350 used for the flight to Montreal consumes 25% less fuel than its predecessor, pointed out Air France, and the aircraft was serviced at Paris-CDG by the first 100% all-electric refuelling truck, which was developed in France with Total expertise, with all the ground support equipment used being fully electric powered.

“This first flight from Paris-CDG airport is a symbol of our ambition to decarbonise air transport by integrating SAF into aircraft,” said Groupe ADP CEO Augustin de Romanet. “The European air transport roadmap aims for zero net emissions by 2050 and we are keen, as an airport operator, to support this energy transition and to embark without delay on the path of transforming our operation process and infrastructure.”

Groupe ADP recently launched an international call for expressions of interest to build a hydrogen industry at its airports. The objective, it said, was to explore the possibility of establishing ‘hydrogen hubs’ in advance of hydrogen-powered aircraft potentially entering service by 2035, a goal set by Airbus.

Toulouse-headquartered Airbus has installed SAF refuelling stations at its industrial facilities so it can be used in production operations, as well as for aircraft deliveries. It is also conducting series of tests to certify its aircraft to fly with 100% SAF in the coming decades.

“Sustainable fuels are a major lever for achieving our objectives of decarbonising the aviation sector, and Airbus supports all initiatives that contribute to their development and use on commercial flights,” confirmed Guillaume Faury, Airbus CEO. “Coordinated action by all stakeholders is needed to increase the share of these sustainable fuels, which can be used today on up to 50% of our aircraft without any modification or operational impact, thereby reducing their environmental footprint.”

The SAF supplied by Air bp to Clermont-Ferrand Auvergne Airport was also made from ISCC-certified waste-based sustainable feedstocks such as used cooking oil and blended at around 35% with traditional jet fuel. Air bp customer Michelin Air Services was the first to uplift the SAF blend according to agreed commitments for ongoing supply at the airport. The demand from Michelin means that approximately 30% of the airport’s total volume will be supplied as this SAF blend.

“We are committed to decarbonising our flights with the use of SAF supplied by Air bp, thereby illustrating the Michelin Group’s ‘All Sustainable’ strategy,” said Corine Brunet, CEO, Michelin Air Services.

Air bp said it could supply SAF to other customers at the airport and encouraged parties interested in a supply agreement to come forward.

Said Air bp Sustainability Director Andreea Moyes: “We are excited to see our first ongoing SAF supply in France. This underlines bp’s commitment to working with stakeholders to explore its viable sale and purchase, which we believe is one of the aviation industry’s key routes to reducing carbon emissions and supports bp’s net zero ambition.”

Air bp refuels aircraft with SAF blend at Clermont-Ferrand (photo: Air bp):

Top photo: Air France A350 takes on SAF blend at Paris-CDG prior to flight to Montreal