India’s sustainable aviation fuel costs 40% less: UC Berkeley Report

VoM News Desk | June 24, 2026 | 12:39 AM IST | Breaking News, India, Press Release | Follow on Google News

India’s sustainable aviation fuel costs 40% less: UC Berkeley Report

The emerging industry could boost clean-fuel exports, curb winter air pollution, and reduce India’s exposure to oil-import shocks amid West Asia volatility.

New Delhi/Berkeley, June 23rd, 2026; India can produce sustainable aviation fuel at costs up to 40% lower than global benchmarks by combining agricultural residue with low-cost solar-based green hydrogen, according to a new report by UC Berkeley’s India Energy & Climate Center and Energy Innovation.

The report, India’s Aviation Opportunity: Turning Agricultural Residue and Low-Cost Solar into Competitive Sustainable Aviation Fuel with Power-and-Biomass-to-Liquids, finds that India is among the few countries with the two resources the global aviation sector urgently needs: abundant agricultural residue and some of the world’s lowest-cost renewable power for green hydrogen production.

The findings come as airlines in Europe, the UK, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific face rising sustainable aviation fuel mandates and voluntary climate commitments, but global SAF supply remains far below expected demand. India’s ability to produce SAF at up to 40% lower cost than global benchmarks could position the country as one of the world’s most competitive suppliers of clean aviation fuel.

Supplying one-quarter of the global SAF market could create an estimated $9 billion annual export opportunity for India by 2030, rising to about $30 billion annually by 2040. This would use only about 4% of India’s surplus crop residue by 2030 and about 13% by 2040.

The opportunity is especially timely because the West Asia crisis has exposed the vulnerability of oil-importing economies to crude oil and aviation turbine fuel price volatility. India imports most of its crude oil requirements, and aviation fuel remains one of the largest operating costs for airlines. The report argues that domestically produced sustainable aviation fuel can serve as a strategic hedge against imported fuel shocks while helping India build a new export-oriented industrial sector.

India is also not starting from scratch. Indian companies have already established the essential elements of crop-residue supply chains, including aggregation, contracting, densification, storage and transport. Digital marketplaces and private aggregators are beginning to connect farmers with industrial buyers, showing that residue collection can become a reliable commercial supply chain when farmers receive predictable prices and offtake contracts.

Every winter, open-field crop-residue burning contributes to severe air pollution across North India. The report argues that the same residue that now contributes to the air pollution crisis can become the feedstock for a high-value clean aviation fuel industry.

“India does not need to choose between clean air, energy security and industrial growth,” said Dr. Amol Phadke, Faculty Director, India Energy & Climate Center, UC Berkeley. “Our analysis shows that India can produce sustainable aviation fuel at costs up to 40% lower than global benchmarks by combining crop residue with low-cost green hydrogen. This is a rare opportunity to turn a domestic air-pollution challenge into a strategic clean-fuel export industry.”

The report focuses on a pathway called power-and-biomass-to-liquids, or PBtL. In this process, agricultural residues such as rice straw, wheat straw and cotton stalks are gasified and combined with green hydrogen produced from low-cost solar power. The resulting synthesis gas is converted through the Fischer-Tropsch process into liquid fuels, including jet fuel that can be used in today’s aircraft.

India’s Gas Crisis Exposes Industrial Risks as Solar Electric Heat Turns Cheaper: UC Berkeley–Energy Innovation Report

Unlike ethanol-to-jet pathways that rely on food or sugar crops and can raise land and water concerns, PBtL uses surplus agricultural residue. It does not require new cropland, dedicated energy crops or major irrigation. By creating a commercial market for residue, PBtL could generate new income for farmers, support rural logistics businesses, and reduce the incentive for open-field burning.

AI tutoring startup SigIQ.ai emerges from stealth with $9.5M to democratize elite education

“The biggest advantage is that India already has the building blocks,” said José Luis Domínguez Bennett, UC Berkeley India Energy & Climate Center. “The country has low-cost solar, an emerging green hydrogen industry, large volumes of agricultural residue, and companies that are already collecting and moving that residue at commercial scale. PBtL brings these strengths together into a clean fuel pathway that fits India unusually well.”

“Mandated aviation fuel markets are looking for scalable, low-carbon supply, and India has a chance to serve that demand,” said Dan Esposito, Energy Innovation. “If India can de-risk the first commercial PBtL projects, it can turn air pollution and waste management challenges into a durable export industry, while reducing exposure to imported oil and volatile global fuel prices.”

The report identifies regions around Delhi, Pune and Mumbai airports as promising locations for first-of-a-kind PBtL projects. It also identifies Maharashtra, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh as strong candidates for early deployment because of their combination of biomass availability, renewable power potential, airport access and industrial logistics.

The authors emphasize that the core technologies behind PBtL are not experimental. Biomass gasification, Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and electrolytic green hydrogen production are commercially established technologies. The challenge is first-of-a-kind commercial integration in India at scale.

To unlock the opportunity, the report recommends that India:

1. Launch first-of-a-kind PBtL demonstration projects near major aviation hubs such as Delhi, Mumbai and Pune;
2. Provide concessional finance, viability-gap support for green hydrogen, streamlined approvals and airport logistics integration;
3. Mobilize public sector oil companies as anchor developers and offtakers;
4. Align Indian SAF certification and sustainability rules with European and UK mandates to enable exports;
5. Create targeted incentives for fuels that use surplus agricultural residue and verifiable green hydrogen; and
6. Expand India’s SAF blending targets beyond international flights to provide stronger long-term demand certainty.

About the India Energy & Climate Center

The India Energy & Climate Center (IECC) at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy leverages clean energy technology and policy expertise at the world’s top public university, Silicon Valley, and the state of California to catalyze the rapid transformation of energy systems that can deliver significant environmental, economic, and energy security benefits.

IECC works collaboratively with Indian policymakers and business leaders to design an innovation and deployment ecosystem through tech-informed policy design, capacity building, a leadership dialogue platform and south-to-south collaboration.

VoM News Desk

VoM News is an online web portal in jammu Kashmir offers regional, National & global news.