Page 3 - έντυπο INFOGRAPHICS_9-2019

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In 2018,in relation to the activities of Alternative Renewable Transport Fuels Forum (AFF) and also related to an on-going IEA Bioenergy study of the future cost of biofuels,
it was concluded that it would be suitable to make an update of the SGAB report “Technology status and reliability of the value chains” issued in early 2017, and
to broaden it to also include what was seen as emerging technologies. The update of the report was sponsored by DG ENER as a side activity within AFF, and the support of DG ENER is
gratefully acknowledged.

The authors in principle used the same methodology as in the previous 2017 version, i.e. primarily approaching developers and project owners for information. Since such information
was not obtained to the same extent as in the previous report, in particular for the emerging technologies, it was complemented by additional information available from public sources
in this update.

Key Messages generation (E2G) ethanol was on the verge of being commercial with several industrial scale, first-
of-a-kind plants in early operation, using a variety of integrated technologies. The technology
Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (HVO) is already a commercial technology today at a scale developers were competing in licensing their technology to locations with strong support policies.
of millions of tonnes. In 2017, 5 million tonnes/yr of HVO was produced globally and the All of them were based on agricultural residues while technologies based on forestry residues
production is expected to increase to 6-7 million tonnes/yr by 2020 and continue to increase still have to reach the level of industrial scale demonstration. However, in recent years there
thereafter. This increase is both in new greenfield plants, expansions on brownfield HVO sites and has been some set-backs among the pioneers; Abengoa and Biochemtex were both forced into
from retrofitting existing refineries to produce HVO, in the EU, USA and South-East Asia involving administration and the Hugoton and Crescentino facilities were closed. DuPont left the biofuel
companies like ENI, Neste, Preem, REG, St1, Total, UPM, World Energy and others. The expansion of production area and sold its plant for other purposes. On the positive side, POET reports that
the HVO technology is based on proprietary technologies from several licensors representing both bottlenecks have been overcome, and in Brazil Raizen is expanding its plant in Piracicaba and
own-operate entities but also at least two world-scale contractors that can provide technology the operational record of Granbio is reported to have improved considerably, Clariant has gone
to any third party. The main limitation for the HVO capacity expansion is to source lipid raw beyond the demonstration plant and has broken ground on a commercial plant in Romania, while
materials (vegetable oils, grease, tallow and UCO etc.) from sources that are acceptable from a St1 has operated its forest residue demo plant and is pursuing a commercial project in Norway.
sustainability perspective on the market where they are sold. Vegetable oils, and in particular Finally, recently the Crescentino plant has been taken over by Versalis Spa, a subsidiary to ENI,
palm oil and other edible oils, have been debated from a sustainability perspective, both from a and operations are to be resumed. In addition, a strong policy for ethanol production in India has
food vs. fuel and an iLUC perspective. In the EU, the iLUC directive and RED II has introduced caps generated technology developments by Praj and DBT-ICT that has reached demonstration scale.
on biofuels from such feedstocks as well as on biofuels from some other waste lipid fractions. Also, a few industrial scale projects are in construction and several more are in various stages of
Nevertheless, the capacity still could double from the expected 2020 production level. The planning, including projects based on licensing of EU technologies, making India the hotspot for
feedstock discussion has caused moves to use other lipids that are seen as residues or wastes industrial developments of this technology in recent years.
and not subject to the above limitations. Furthermore, schemes are being developed to use crops
grown on marginal, abandoned or contaminated land or in crop rotations, whereby food and feed Gasification technologies are lagging relative to the E2G ethanol technology, with a small
crop production is not affected. number of plants in early operation and in pilots. Technically it could provide significant
quantities in 2030, if the move to scale can be accomplished by 2020. Due to high investment
In the previous version of the report, it was concluded that lignocellulosic or second intensity, larger installed plant capacities are needed for this value chain even at the demo