Objective

Working in close cooperation, the partners of ’Bioport for Jet Fuels in the Netherlands’ (Bioport Holland) are committed to promote a shift from single projects to the continuous production and supply of sustainable bio jet fuel for the Netherlands and Europe,  aimed at upscaling the deployment of sustainable biofuels in the aviation sector.

The ambition is to position the Netherlands in the heart of the emerging European bio jet fuel market which envisions large volumes of sustainable and price competitive bio jet fuels available for commercial use in Europe as soon as possible. Therefore, the initiative will aim to offer a growth path for, and contribute to, the European Advanced Biofuels Flight Path 2020 targets.

Description

Stakeholders
Bioport Hollands is a joint initiative of key stakeholders from the public and private domain in the Dutch aviation and biofuels industry: KLM, SkyNRG, Schiphol Airport, Neste Oil, Port of Rotterdam, the State Secretary of Infrastructure and the Environment and the Minister of Economic Affairs.

Motivation
The initiative’s stakeholders believe that the use of biofuels is the most important pathway for aviation to address the global challenge of climate change and achieve the sector’s ambitious goals for greenhouse gas emissions reduction. Furthermore, reducing dependency on fossil fuels could increase energy independence.

Directions of work
To significantly increase the amounts of bio jet fuel available in the years ahead, the central objective is to create a sustainable biofuel market, in the Netherlands and in Europe, and to set-up a whole supply chain, which comply with strict environmental, economic and social sustainability criteria.

Securing sustainable and price competitive feedstock, bringing existing technologies to market, as well as innovating in new technologies, and  generating a long-term market demand are the key axes identified by Bioport Holland to reach continuous supply and to meet environmental targets. A holistic approach with further cooperation between all partners is deemed to be essential for investments and innovations in all steps of the supply chain. This will be further elaborated in dedicated working groups that focus on feedstock, conversion and demand.

The sustainability, availability and price level of bio feedstocks are the most important challenges for increasing production volumes and offtake. Development efforts should be focused on expanding the mix of the feedstock base. Feedstock projects have to be developed in collaboration with relevant feedstock industries, such as agriculture and the waste sector, to ensure the long term availability of sustainable and price competitive bio jet fuel.

For bio jet fuel, new conversion technologies and techniques are needed beside short term upscaling of already approved technologies. Only by developing a diverse mix of different feedstock and conversion techniques it will be possible to upscale the production of bio jet fuel in the Netherlands, which is price competitive with fossil fuel. Technology development projects need to be done in collaboration with all supply chain stakeholders, such as industry, government, financing institutions, research institutions and NGOs. The focus of these projects will be on commercial production and on adding value to the sectors that have no alternatives to mitigate their climate impact.

Stable, long-term market demand must be created in order to make investing in the development and production of aviation biofuels worthwhile. Long-term offtake agreements and governmental incentives, within their policy and regulatory framework, are needed to reduce the financial risk of investing in feedstock and conversion capacity. The aim is to meet price competitiveness with fossil fuels on a structural basis, which will be a crucial aspect for large scale structural offtake.
 

Organisation
To achieve the initiative’s goals, Bioport Holland is organised in several projects and working group addressing the following key topics:

• Sourcing of sustainable and price competitive types of feedstock;
• Analysis of conversion technologies and production opportunities for bio jet fuel and gradual scale-up in time;
• Policies and incentive mechanisms to stimulate market demand for sustainable bio jet fuel;
• Blending, logistics, transport and certification;
• R&D and pilot projects;
• Communication, coordination and cooperation on a national, European and global level to stimulate the development and deployment of sustainable biofuels in aviation.

Partners

​Partners: KLM, SkyNRG, Schiphol Airport, Neste Oil and Port of Rotterdam, the State Secretary of Infrastructure and the Environment and the Minister of Economic Affairs

Collaborators: Feedstock developers, Manufacturers, Knowledge&Research institutions and NGOs.

Participation of aforementioned parties in this process is expected to be dynamic and will not be limited to the list of key stakeholders as presented above.

Achievements to date

• Sustainable Bio Award ‘Collaboration of the Year 2013’ at the World Biofuels Market event.
• Nominated as a High Impact Initiative within the UN Sustainable Energy for All program.

Achievements will be updated in the course of the project

Contact information

Dutch Government
Laurens van Sterkenburg
laurens.van.sterkenburg [at] minienm.nl (laurens[dot]van[dot]sterkenburg[at]minienm[dot]nl)