SAF to decarbonize heavy duty transport in India
India Hydrogen Alliance (IH2A) recently released its LowCarbon eFuels & Heavy Duty Transport Decarbonization Report 2025-2030 that identifies Low-Carbon Coastal Shipping, running on Green Methanol or Green Ammonia, and Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) powered Aviation, to be key drivers of low-carbon eFuels in India in the 2025-2030 period.
The IH2A report makes the case for India to build Low-Carbon eFuels Hubs and Low-Carbon Heavy Duty Transport Corridors along India’s East and West Coast.
The IH2A Low-Carbon eFuels report 2025-30 is based on a scenario and assumption of a Low-Carbon Coastal Shipping fleet of 22 Green Methanol powered, and 22 Green Ammonia-powered vessels; a LowCarbon Heavy Duty Trucking Fleet of 30 Green Methanol fueled, 30 Green Ammonia fueled and 30 Green Hydrogen trucks transport and 1-3% SAF blending on 122 flights (domestic and international) by 2030.
Key takeaways of IH2A Low-Carbon eFuels Report 2025-2030:
* Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) blending, as a drop in fuel, is easiest for decarbonizing aviation in the short term as it does not require new aircraft CAPEX and creation of re-Fueling Infrastructure.
* Coastal shipping fleets can be key volume driver for low-carbon e-fuels offtake – coastal shipping can account for significant offtake of green methanol and green ammonia volumes for transport decarbonization.
* Fleet & Re-Fueling Infrastructure CAPEX for Green Methanol, Green Ammonia and Liquid/Compressed Gaseous Hydrogen is significant. Incentivizing fleet owners to include low-carbon e-fuel-powered vehicles and creating low-carbon e-fuel refueling infrastructure will be important.
* Low Carbon and Green eFuels Production and Refueling Infrastructure should be clustered in Green Fuel Hubs, in few coastal locations, to reduce offtake risk, fuel coastal shipping and trucking fleets that operate along the coasts, minimizing cost of building eFuel refueling infrastructure in short term.
* Collaborative Cross-Border Green Fuels Partnerships, with Singapore (for Green Methanol as Maritime Fuel) and the EU (for SAF on Aviation Fleets) are important for India, to decarbonize heavy-duty transport.
Amrit Singh Deo, IH2A Secretariat lead, said, “Aviation and Coastal Shipping are two clear priorities for decarbonizing transport with low-carbon eFuels. Coastal Shipping can deliver the volumes while SAF as a drop-in fuel is the easiest to deploy in the short-term. Strategic Low-Carbon eFuel Partnerships with Singapore and Europe will help drive eFuel adoption. Transport fleet owners, in shipping and trucking, will require CAPEX support to introduce low-carbon vehicles in their heavy-duty transport fleets. Without demand-side incentives to transport fleet owners, adoption of eFuel powered vehicles will be slow. Low carbon eFuels have an important role to play in decarbonizing heavy duty transport but close coordination between policy makers, e-fuel producers and fleet owners are required.”
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