Toward the end of this year, used and discarded cooking oil will start being collected from hotels and restaurants to produce aviation fuel, says a government-owned refinery.
The Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOC), also called IndianOil, said it is the only company in the country to have won a certification by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), almost 35,000 tonnes of which will be produced per year in its Panipat refinery.
SAF is an alternative to conventional jet fuel, made from non-petroleum feedstocks such cooking oil, agricultural residues and even carbon dioxide captured from air. Since it reduces emissions from air transportation, it can help cut down carbon footprint. SAF is designed to be a ‘drop-in’ fuel, which means it can be used in existing aircraft engines without needing major modifications.
While it can be blended up to 50 per cent in conventional aviation turbine fuel (ATF or jet fuel), depending on availability, India has mandated 1 per cent SAF blending in jet fuel to be sold to international airlines from 2027.
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The IOC chairman, Arvinder Singh Sahney, said the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) developed under the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) allows them to produce SAF from used cooking oil, which will be supportive to the government’s mission to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070.
India plans to mandate blending of SAF with conventional ATF in a staged manner – the current one per cent SAF-blending in ATF sold to all international flights will gradually be increased to 2 per cent-blending in 2028.
In August, 2018, SpiceJet had flown a test flight using a blend of 75 per cent regular ATF and 25 per cent biofuel. Subsequently, IndiGo did a demonstration flight using 10 per cent SAF-blend on an international flight in February, 2022.
So far, cooking oil discarded after one use by large hotels and restaurant chains is collected by agencies to be exported. With the IOC’s Panipat refinery now ready to collect this for SAF production, the only challenge remaining would be the logistics involved in the collection.
"There is a large amount of such oil available in the country. The only challenge is collection. While it is easy to collect from large hotel chains, a solution needs to be found for collection from small users, including households," Sahney said.
Elaborating further on the company’s green energy ambitions, the chairman said they plan to power their Panipat refinery using green hydrogen, which is relatively cheaper and leaves no residue in the air, unlike coal and oil.
“We have awarded a tender for the country’s largest green hydrogen plant to be set up at our Panipat refinery to L&T. The 10,000 tonnes-a-year green hydrogen unit will be ready in 27 months and cost us less than USD 4 per kg,” he said.
Green hydrogen is produced from splitting water using renewable energy and only emits water vapour. It can be used in industries and automobiles as fuel, but the prohibitive production cost has been a stumbling block, which is why most refineries continue to use grey hydrogen that is produced from fossil fuels.
Sahney insists the SAF produced at their Panipat refinery for testing by Cotecna (a leading provider of testing, inspection and certification services) has undergone rigorous assessment for lifecycle carbon emissions and traceability, thereby clearing the pathway for Indian airlines to integrate SAF into their operations.
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