India aims for self-reliance in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) by 2030, with industry leaders urging government policy support and financial incentives.
They highlight the potential for India to become a major SAF export hub due to its low carbon intensity ethanol and proximity to major aviation centers.
A national SAF policy is deemed crucial for reducing aviation emissions.
India could achieve self-sufficiency in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) by 2030 and even emerge as a major export hub, industry stakeholders said at a recent discussion on decarbonising aviation, while seeking urgent policy support and financial incentives from the government.
“By our calculations, we should have a mandate SAF requirement of 350 to 500 million litres which translates to 700 million litres to a billion litres only of ethanol by 2030,” Sameer Sinha, chief executive of sugar business at Triveni Engineering & Industries Ltd, said at the India Sugar and Bio-Energy conference. “There is a huge potential in the feedstock that’s available…our ethanol has low carbon intensity (CI)…we have immediate self-sufficiency for the country for our SAF mandate.”
“We can be a very competitive centre for export of SAF because of the proximity to the large aviation hubs of Middle East such as Dubai, Singapore and especially given the low CI value of our ethanol,” he added.
They underlined the need for a conducive ethanol policy “right up front”, citing the success of the 2018 National Biofuel Policy.
The national biofuel policy enabled India to go from 5 per cent blending in 2019-20 to 20 per cent by 2025-26. "So, that's a remarkable thing of what an optimised policy can do,” the producer noted. They also called for pricing clarity and mandated offtake.
“If I look at the current pricing of aviation turbine fuel at Rs 90 per litre, our ask should be somewhere around 2.75 times, and if we consider 2G ethanol, it would be in the range of 2.5-3.5 times,” he said.
Industry demanded capital subsidies, preferential pricing for first plants, higher debt-equity ratio (3:1), accelerated depreciation, tax holidays and stacking of state incentives, alongside airport storage, blending and distribution infrastructure upgrades. Airlines must also share the initial cost burden, they said.
“If it's a domestic airline, our calculation shows it would hardly be Rs 200-300 per passenger in terms of increase,” the producer said.
They also flagged the urgency of putting carbon accounting and certification systems in place for compliance under International Civil Aviation Organization’s Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) framework.
“An 80-tonne-per-day plant would cost around Rs 1,400 crore, and take about three and a half years at least to make. This means that the first SAF plant, even if we start now, can only be ready in 2029,” he noted.
Kanika Chawla, SAF strategy and business development at Airbus India and South Asia, said it was supporting both producers and airlines in SAF adoption.
“Our current aircraft are capable of flying with approximately 50 per cent of SAF, and our target is that by 2030, we increase that to 100 per cent SAF,” she said, adding that India must “look at SAF from an innovative lens” and treat it as an “ecosystem where the producers, the airline, the regulators need to work unanimously”.
The industry executives urged the government to finalise a national SAF policy by the end of this financial year, calling it a low-hanging fruit to cut aviation emissions by 50-60 per cent.
Earlier this week, Down To Earth (DTE) reported that the Indian government is finalising a national SAF policy and a roadmap through 2050 to meet CORSIA mandates and become an export hub.
“Carbon emission is an issue which is affecting everybody and this is one of the very low-hanging fruits as far as using SAF in aviation is concerned,” Faiz Ahmed Kidwai, director general of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, said.