Iberia has signed a deal with Cepsa, a Spanish energy company, to develop and test sustainable aviation biofuels (SAFs) while also looking into other ways to reduce carbon emissions, such as renewable hydrogen and electrification.
The two Spanish companies will collaborate to see how SAFs and other low-carbon flight innovations can be integrated into Iberia and Iberia Express’s fleet of planes.
It has not stated what percentage of SAF blend it will use; currently, biofuel blending is limited to 50%. It has, however, stated that beginning in 2030, it will purchase a million tonnes of SAF annually, resulting in a two-million-tonne reduction in annual emissions. LanzaJet and Velocys are two of the company’s current SAF suppliers.
According to the companies, this new agreement will contribute to the European Commission’s Fit for 55 package. This includes the RefuelEU Aviation initiative, which aims to increase aviation biofuel supply and demand in the European Union to 2% use by 2025, 5% by 2030, and 63 percent by 2050.
In the United Kingdom, the state of SAF is mixed. Hundreds of large corporations have backed the technology, which has also received government funding.
There are also concerns about SAF’s ability to reduce the aviation sector’s climate impact in accordance with the Paris Agreement. The Climate Change Committee (CCC) of the UK government recommended that, in addition to SAF, more be done to scale electric aircraft and limit demand growth.
