CESTAP (Competence cEntre in Sustainable Turbine fuels for Aviation and Power) is a newly established centre of competence including academic and industrial partners promoting production and use of sustainable fuels for stationary gas turbines and aviation jet engines. Academic and institute partners include Lund University as the coordinating partner, Luleå University and the Research Institute of Sweden (RISE). CESTAP is funded by the Swedish Energy Agency, with contributions from about 28 industrial partners and the mentioned academic partners.
Sustainable future energy use rely on a shift away from fossil fuels, which in some sectors can be done with new non-combustion technologies like batteries or fuel-cells. Still, in some sectors like aviation, maritime transport, and peak-load and back-up power generation, combustion will be difficult to replace. These sectors rely relatively heavy on continuous combustion engines like gas turbines and jet engines, and they together currently contribute with close to 10% of the global anthropogenic CO2 release.
To meet the needs of aviation and power production industries, the aim of the competence centre is to develop knowledge and technologies to produces efficient, sustainable, and cost-effective turbine fuels that ultimately can be used as true mono-fuels – completely replacing fossil fuels.
The most efficient use of resources requires a focus on sustainable turbine fuels, that can be used as mono-fuels. Compared to the present efforts spent on drop-in fuels this will be a comparatively large, but necessary, undertaking. To achieve success the development must include the full range of activities from feedstock characterization and chemical conversion process development, via fuel development and production, to engine modifications to facilitate the use of fuels with wider specifications. In this respect it is important to have a holistic techno-economic framework to evaluate concepts against.
The vision of CESTAP is to transform the aviation and power generation sec-tors to run continuous combustion engines on 100% sustainable turbine fuels. In addition, the focus is on sustainable turbine fuels from raw material readily available in Sweden, to achieve security of supply.
Research and development within CESTAP is jointly performed by academic partners from Lund University, Technical University of Luleå and the Research Institute of Sweden, and 28 industrial partners. The partners cover the whole value chain from feedstocks to cost-effective fuel production and distribution, to the utilization of the fossil-free fuel to create thrust, power and electricity for the end-users.
Are you curious about the latest activities or results? You are very welcome to have a look at PUBLICATIONS. Also, on LinkedIn you can follow the project and the latest news, and there we also post important news from our partners. If you have other questions, please find our email adress below.
The project is carried out with support from the Swedish Energy Agency. LTH, Lund University, is the coordinating partner of CESTAP.
