Sustainable fuel factory to give domestic flights the first green push down the runway

Behind the project is Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), which in collaboration with the North Jutland waste community, Nordværk, and Aalborg Forsyning is currently in the process of preparing the basis for the necessary permits to build the plant.

COWI assists CIP with the planning of the project and handling all regulatory processes, including the implementation of environmental and nature surveys and the application for the necessary permits. It is expected that all permits are in place, and construction can begin during 2026.

A central technology in the green transition

'Fjord PtX' takes its name from the local body of water, Limfjorden, which the facility is located close to. The abbreviation in the second part of the project name, 'PtX', stands for 'Power-to-X', which is a collective term for a number of technologies that are capable of converting green power into another energy carrier.

Power-to-X technologies have been identified as playing a central role in the green transition worldwide, as they contribute to phasing out the use of fossil fuels in consumer goods that cannot be produced or powered by electricity – such as air travel.

In the Fjord PtX plant, the power will be turned into jet fuel or eSAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel) as it is formally known.

This is done by first splitting water into hydrogen in a huge 300-400 MW electrolysis plant driven by greem power from wind turbines and solar plant and subsequently converting it into aviation fuel via chemical synthesis together with carbon from captured CO₂.

This is where the other two partners in the project come into the picture. Aalborg Forsyning supplies the ultra-clean water for the electrolysis process, while Nordværk's waste incineration plant supplements with captured CO₂ from the flue gas in its chimney.

Annually, the plant is expected to be able to produce up to 110 million litres of aviation fuel. In comparison, the annual domestic flights in Denmark today require 30 million litres of fuel, while a total of just over 1,200 million litres of fuel are used on flights in and out of Denmark.

An energetic multitool

In addition to supplying aviation with some of the first drops of green aviation fuel, the factory will supply a number of other sustainable by-products.

On the one hand, the flexible operation of Fjord PtX will ensure efficient utilisation of the electricity fed into the Danish energy system from renewable energy sources. This can contribute to wind turbines and solar cells having more operating hours and thus represent a better investment for the companies who install renewable energy.

In addition, the electrolysis process will produce large amounts of excess heat, which Fjord PtX will send into the district heating network. The volumes are so large that the factory can heat the equivalent of 11,000 households in the Aalborg area.

Finally, the chemical synthesis will also produce naphtha, which is a main ingredient in the production of plastics. Normally, naphtha is a by-product of the processing of crude oil in refineries, but in Fjord PtX's plant it will be a green variant.

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, which owns the project, will invest over 1 billion euros in building the plant. The completed plant is expected to be fully operational towards the end of 2030.