Germany grants €349m of public funding to green hydrogen-based e-SAF project
Source：hydrogeninsight
The German government will provide €349m ($417.5m) in public funding for a synthetic aviation fuel (e-SAF) facility in eastern Germany that aims to produce 30,000 tonnes of e-SAF a year using green hydrogen and captured carbon dioxide.
Developer Concrete Chemicals — a joint venture between German renewables developer Enertrag and Zaffra (itself a joint venture between Danish equipment supplier Topsoe and South African energy and chemical company Sasol) — will receive €245m of grants from the German government and €104m from the state of Brandenburg.
The project is expected to cost €494m, which means that German taxpayers will be contributing more than 70% of the total funding.
The European Commission had granted state-aid approval to the project in December 2024, and the funding has now been signed off by the German federal government and the state of Brandenburg, but Brussels still has to give final approval before the money can be dispersed.
The plant is due to be built at an industrial park in the town of Schwedt, 100km outside Berlin, and produce 30,000 tonnes of e-kerosene annually from captured CO2 from a local manufacturer of recycled paper and cardboard products.
Initial plans were to build the plant closer to Berlin, in the town of Rüdersdorf, and to use carbon dioxide captured from an existing cement plant in the town.
In addition to the e-SAF, the Schwedt plant will also produce 7,000 tonnes of e-naphtha a year — a flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture that is normally derived from crude oil and is used in plastics or as a fuel for lighters and camping stoves. The project had previously aimed to produce 6,500 tonnes of e-naptha.
No offtakers have yet been announced.
“Our expertise in renewables enables the cost-efficient use of green hydrogen to power the aviation fuels of the future,” said Enertrag CEO Gunar Hering.
Concrete Chemicals said the project would help meet EU mandates on e-fuel covered by the ReFuelEU Aviation regulation, which will require all European airlines to ensure that 1.2% of all aviation fuel leaving EU airports is made from green hydrogen-based e-SAF by 2030.