Denmark has received a record quantity of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at a terminal in Prøvestenen. The delivery marks the starting point of the country’s aim meet the growing demand for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from airlines by establishing the country’s first large-scale SAF storage.
By establishing a first large-scale SAF storage on Danish, DCC & Shell Aviation will give the Danish aviation industry a head start on the EU’s 2025 requirements to mandate airlines to fly with an increasing proportion of SAF.
The company has been considering building a large-scale SAF supply base in the country since 2021, when it signed a deal with Sonderborg Airport for SAF supplies for the domestic route to Copenhagen.
“Since then, Billund Airport has joined and most recently Copenhagen Airport via the SAF agreement we have entered into with Air Greenland,” said Sune Petersen, Head of Sustainability & Strategy at DCC & Shell Aviation Denmark.
Owned by Oiltanking Copenhagen, the Prøvestenen terminal is connected by pipeline to the country’s largest airport.
Sune Petersen, Head of Sustainability & Strategy, DCC & Shell Aviation Denmark and Karl Henrik Dahl, Managing Director, Oiltanking Copenhagen A/S. © Oiltanking Copenhagen A/S. Photo: Christoffer Regild
“From Oiltanking Copenhagen’s tanks at Prøvestenen, we are not only able to send SAF directly into the pipelines to Copenhagen Airport, we can also efficiently reach the other airports through our existing supply network,” added Petersen.
By building infrastructure around SAF, Denmark’s aviation industry could be able to handle different kinds of liquid fuels such as PtX-based fuel.
“In this respect, our infrastructure at Prøvestenen provides a solid and scalable basis for us to guarantee stable energy supplies across the country, throughout the energy transition.”
This enables the company to be able to handle SAF deliveries on very large scale, according to Petersen, who called for airlines to displace fossil jet fuel ‘gradually’.
What is SAF?
SAF is an eco-friendly alternative to traditional jet fuel, produced from renewable sources like agricultural waste or used cooking oil.
SAF can be seamlessly integrated into existing airplanes without any modifications, making it a practical solution to mitigate the environmental impact of air travel while maintaining compatibility with current aviation infrastructure.
“We need to move away from the idea of pouring green feel into every single aircraft on a given route,” he said. “It’s about mass balance, where the airlines’ purchase of SAF is part of the overall fuel supply and gradually displaces fossil jet fuel.
According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the use of SAF has been shown to reduce up to 80% of overall carbon dioxide (CO2) lifecycle emissions compared to fossil fuels.
SAF also contains fewer impurities (such as sulphur), which enables an even greater reduction in sulphur dioxide and particulate matter emissions than present technology has achieved.
