A new multi-million euro facility to produce advanced biofuels from forest feed stock is to be built in Norway.
Silva Green Fuel AS will begin building the demonstration plant in Tofte early next year, with the site expected to be up and running by 2019. Owned by Statkraft (51%) and Södra (49%), the company was set up to take forward the commercial production of biofuels using ‘forest raw materials’.
“Advanced biofuels will be important for the transition from fossil to renewable energy consumption in the transport sector. As Europe’s largest supplier of renewable energy, Statkraft is championing an industry development that will contribute to the green shift,” said President and CEO Christian Rynning-Tønnesen.
The demonstration plant will test how good the technology, from Danish-Canadian company Steeper Energy, is in providing a reliable supply of fuel. It will also use different raw materials, from the forest industry initially but other biodegradable materials will be tried out.
Silva Green Fuel AS plans are to offer fuel to trucks but longer term the company will tweak it to make it suitable for the aviation industry.
In the future, a full-scale plant will be able to provide up to 150 million litres of biofuel annually.