House of Commons approves RTFO SAF Order

The UK House of Commons has approved the draft Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (SAF) Order 2024, which had support from both sides of the House and was unopposed. It will next go to the House of Lords for approval before becoming law with the airline SAF mandate of 2% coming into effect in January 2025. This year has seen significant progress on the SAF mandate from the April industry consultation response to acknowledgement of a legislative revenue support mechanism bill in the King’s Speech in July. The latter is intended to support SAF producers as well as draw investment into UK SAF production.

Mike Kane, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, who presented the draft RTFO Order, had commented: “SAF is one of the most effective ways of starting to decarbonise flights. The SAF mandate will support the decarbonisation of the aviation industry by creating demand for SAF in the UK.”

He had also highlighted the government’s commitment to supporting a domestic SAF industry, including through the Advanced Fuels Fund which supports 13 UK plants. Project Speedbird, a partnership between NPT, British Airways and LanzaJet, is one of the UK’s SAF projects.

Project Speedbird demonstrates the commercial capability of two complementary technology processes. NPT’s REFNOVA technology will transform 2G non-food derived agricultural and woody biomass taken from sustainable sources into 2G ethanol and biochar. LanzaJet’s AtJ process will convert the 2G ethanol into 102 million litres of SAF per year. The SAF produced at the facility would reduce CO₂ emissions, on a net lifecycle basis, by 230,000 tonnes a year. NPT’s valuable co-product biochar from the REFNOVA process in Project Speedbird, which sequestrates CO₂ from the atmosphere, provides a net negative emissions end-to-end process and materially increases the value of the Speedbird SAF. British Airways intends to offtake all SAF produced at the facility to help power some of its flights.