- Sasol ecoFT has signed a letter of intent with Sollefteå municipality in collaboration with Sweden’s energy company Uniper, to investigate the possibility of establishing an industry-scale production facility for sustainable aviation fuel.
- Once built, this highly innovative industrial plant, will contribute to the decarbonisation of the aviation industry.
- Sasol is also studying the possibility of obtaining as much as 3 000 MW of renewable power from South Africa’s North West Coast to make 100 000 t of green hydrogen for export.
Taking place under the joint venture SkyFuelH2, the ambition is to produce sustainable aviation fuel based on green hydrogen and carbon from biomass using the Fischer-Tropsch process. The process is based on Sasol’s world-class proprietary Fischer-Tropsch technology.
Långsele in Sollefteå is the natural site selection for SkyFuelH2, not least thanks to the municipality’s ambitious growth targets and its supply of renewable electricity, carbon from biomass, and suitable land areas.
“We are excited to leverage our proven Fischer-Tropsch technology and 70 years of experience in running complex, integrated operations to produce and market fuels and chemicals. By applying green hydrogen and sustainable carbon sources as feedstock in our proprietary Power-to-Liquids (PtL) process, we can now produce sustainable fuels, thereby contributing to a thriving planet, our society and enterprises,” said Fleetwood Grobler, President and CEO of Sasol Limited.
Bloomberg further reports that Sasol is focusing on green hydrogen — made by machines called electrolysers that are powered by the wind and sun — in South Africa’s northwest coast. The company is doing a feasibility study that it expects to complete in two years, according to Sasol’s CEO Fleetwood Grobler.
“We know that the sunset of the oil industry is staring us in the face,” Grobler said.
Sasol is studying the possibility of obtaining as much as 3 000 MW of renewable power to make 100 000 t of green hydrogen for export. That could be a challenge as Africa’s most-industrialised nation struggles to generate enough electricity.
“From Saldanha Bay to Walvis Bay is the best endowment of sun and wind in southern Africa,” Grobler said, outlining a former steel-making center of South Africa and a port in Namibia along the West Coast.
Sasol’s Boegoebaai project would act as a “first peg” of the plan that would then expand domestic use of the fuel, potentially building a pipeline that would reach the provinces of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, he said.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
