An agreement reached this week between Deutsche Aircraft and Norway’s North Energy Cluster (NEC) brings the Dornier 328 type certificate holder one step closer to realizing its ambitions to introduce the world’s first 100 percent SAF-powered commercial aircraft to market. The agreement, which the partners say will achieve substantial short-term reductions of northern Norway’s aviation climate footprint through the use of so-called e-fuels, calls on wind and hydropower producers, technology suppliers, and electrochemical companies to help build the infrastructure needed at the 26 airports in the remote territory while Deutsche Aircraft provides the aircraft platform.

The manufacturer expects the first D328eco to run on power-to-liquid (PtL) e-fuel by 2023 under a schedule that calls for first revenue service in 2026. The D328eco is a Pratt & Whitney PW127S-powered 43-seat stretch variant of the current PW119A-powered Do 328.

PtL fuel is a synthetically produced liquid hydrocarbon that uses renewable electricity as a key energy source. The three main steps in producing PtL consist of the conversion into carbon feedstock of CO₂ captured via, for example, direct carbon capture; the synthesis of carbon feedstocks into “green” hydrogen using processes such as Fischer-Tropsch to generate liquid hydrogen; and, finally, the conversion of the liquid hydrogen into a synthetic equivalent of kerosene.  

According to Deutsche Aircraft, SAF sold today using processes such as the hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA) production pathway achieve a maximum CO₂ reduction of 80 percent, while PtL can achieve complete carbon neutrality.

“Since today the respective [ASTM] fuel standards are not yet available, we strive for partnerships with fuel suppliers to foster the early development of these standards in order to enable commercial use of PtL as quickly as possible,” said the manufacturer. “The objectives of the partnership are threefold: create business opportunities on both sides including fuel supply; work on e-fuel technologies both in the aircraft and on the fuel supply side; [and] prepare an overall business model for climate-neutral regional aviation. Thus, we [aim to] create access to e-fuels for our customers.” The NEC includes fuel suppliers and industrial companies that dispose of the components needed to produce e-fuels.

In the short term, plans call for the use of CO₂ point sources to accelerate the development of Fischer-Tropsch e-fuels and, in the longer term, CO₂ capture to achieve a 100 percent CO₂ reduction balance. The energy cluster has already started three projects linked to PtL production that will use CO₂ point sources (from ferrosilicon and cement production) as well as green hydrogen. Deutsche Aircraft aspires eventually to power the D328eco with hydrogen, it said.

“E-fuels and hydrogen produced from renewable energies remain the most promising scalable solutions to significantly reduce emissions in one of the most hard-to-abate sectors such as aviation,” said NEC cluster manager Anders Tørud. “What is key to make it happen is to bring down production costs through scale, and we have the right ecosystem in Northern Norway to do so.”

Those aspirations extend to a plan to render Norway’s Lofoten Islands climate-neutral, called the Lofoten Project. Backed by local destination company Visit Lofoten, the Lofoten regional council, and the local power company Lofotkraft (a member of NEC), the project would bring sustainable tourism to one of Norway’s most untouched regions using the D328eco on short-haul routes from the mainland.