Project

The use of renewable fuels has grown rapidly since the early 2000s as markets have matured, driven in part by political targets and incentives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, demand has stagnated as consumers have questioned the sustainability of conventional biofuels.

 

Experts have questioned the overall sustainability of first generation biofuels, including their impact on land use patterns and food prices, and their carbon emissions across the production value chain. In response, a new generation of renewable transport fuels is emerging, but numerous barriers remain in place to their uptake.

 

The ADVANCEFUEL project brings together eight partners from seven different countries, including prominent research centres and universities. It aims to facilitate the commercialisation of advanced renewable transport fuels to contribute to the achievement of the EU’s renewable energy targets, and reduce carbon emissions in the transport sector to 2030 and beyond.

 

ADVANCEFUEL will look into renewable fuels produced from lignocellulosic feedstocks, renewable hydrogen and CO2 streams, and provide market stakeholders with new knowledge, tools, standards and recommendations to help remove barriers to their uptake.

What are advanced transport fuels?

 

The ADVANCEFUEL project will look into liquid advanced biofuels – defined as liquid biofuels produced from lignocellulosic feedstocks from agriculture, forestry and waste – and other liquid renewable fuels, produced from hydrogen and CO2 streams, provided that hydrogen is generated from renewable sources, by using renewable power for the electrolysis of water to gain hydrogen for further processes. This definition covers both renewable alcohols, such as ethanol, butanol and methanol but also renewable diesel, renewable jet fuels, dimethyl ether, as well as liquefied biomethane.

Objectives

 

ADVANCEFUEL aims to facilitate the commercialisation of renewable transport fuels by providing market stakeholders with new knowledge, tools, standards and recommendations to help remove barriers to their uptake.

 

In order to support commercial development of these fuels, the project will firstly develop a framework to monitor the current status, and future perspectives, of renewable fuels in Europe in order to better understand how to overcome barriers to their market roll-out. Following this, it will investigate individual barriers and advance new solutions for overcoming them.

 

The project will examine the challenges of biomass availability for second-generation biofuels, looking at non-food crops and residues, and how to improve supply chains from providers to converters. New and innovative conversion technologies will also be explored in order to see how they can be integrated into energy infrastructure.

 

Sustainability is a major concern for renewable fuels and ADVANCEFUEL will look at socio-economic and environmental sustainability across the entire value chain, providing sustainability criteria and policy-recommendations for ensuring that renewable fuels are truly sustainable fuels. A decision support tools will be created for policy-makers to enable a full value chain assessment of renewable fuels, as well as useful scenarios and sensitivity analysis on the future of these fuels.

 

Stakeholders will be addressed throughout the project through the ADVANCEFUEL Stakeholder Platform, to involve them in a dialogue on the future of renewable fuels and receive feedback on ADVANCEFUEL developments to ensure applicability to the end audience, validate results and ensure successful transfer and uptake of the project results. In this way, ADVANCEFUEL will contribute to the development of new transport fuel value chains that can contribute to the achievement of the EU’s renewable energy targets, and reduce carbon emissions in the transport sector to 2030 and beyond.

Biomass Availability
Conversion Technologies
Sustainability
Market Uptake