New Delhi Pointing out the need to achieve lower carbon emissions, the government is considering making it mandatory for airlines to mix sustainable fuels with the aviation fuel they use, a senior official said.
“We, the Ministry of Civil Aviation, along with the Ministry of Petroleum, are working to mandate a certain percentage of blending as we move forward. It is still a work in progress,” Civil Aviation Secretary Rajiv Bansal said on Tuesday.
“We feel that unless we mandate a certain percentage of blending over a period of time, demand will not be created and unless there is demand, production will not happen,” Bansal said.
He said the government has discussed the proposal with airlines, which are in line with the mandate of blending jet fuel with sustainable fuels.
However, the main challenges for the adoption of sustainable aviation fuels are capacity building and technology transfer.
He said, “We are working with like-minded countries to build a consensus on how this energy transition can, should and will happen – but at a pace that our industry can absorb. ”
On 16 September, Mint reported that the civil aviation and petroleum ministries are working on issuing a roadmap for the use of sustainable aviation fuel.
Sustainable aviation fuel is any fuel that has similar properties to conventional jet fuel but produces fewer carbon emissions.
The concept of sustainable aviation fuel is still new among Indian airlines. So far, there have been a handful of demonstration flights on blended fuels for low carbon emissions. In 2018, SpiceJet Operated the first flight that operated on a blend of 75% aviation turbine fuel and 25% biojet fuel derived from the Jatropha plant.
In December 2021, Indigo signed an agreement with the Dehradun-based Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Indian Institute of Petroleum (CSIRIIP) to manufacture and deploy sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) globally. In February this year, the airline took delivery of an aircraft that runs on sustainable aviation fuel.
The airlines signed an MoU with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Indian Institute of Petroleum (CSIR-IIP) to collaborate on research, development and deployment of sustainable aviation fuels under the Tata umbrella.
The first periodic review of the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) was held in October 2022 at the 41st International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Assembly, where member-states agreed to strive for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. had taken a pledge.
“India is expected to become a party to CORSIA from 2027 and may provide a mandate to operate on a minimum percentage of sustainable aviation fuel,” said a senior aviation ministry official.
“Incentives play a major role in this kind of transformation. An executive of an aircraft manufacturer said, the mandate approach by India may create demand but we will have to wait and see what other measures are in place to boost this demand.
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