Neste is progressing on its projects on the Innovation business platforms for future growth in renewable and circular solutions

To ensure future growth in renewable and circular solutions, Neste’s Innovation unit focuses on scalable and sustainable sources of renewable raw materials and their required technologies in the business platforms. The business platforms established in early 2020 are based on scalable future feedstock pools, which play an important role in reducing dependence on crude oil and tackling climate change: lignocellulosic (forestry- and agricultural waste based) fuels, chemicals, and materials; scalable feedstocks for renewable aviation fuels including algae and municipal waste; and renewable hydrogen and Power-to-X utilizing renewable electricity to convert CO₂ to fuels and chemicals. 

“We have made great progress on our business platforms, where we have several projects going in different phases. On our journey to a carbon neutral world, innovation is one of the key enablers: we continue to grow our raw material base and create new solutions, extend our collaboration with industry partners, universities and investors, and seize new opportunities with readiness to invest and experiment,“ says Lars Peter Lindfors, SVP Innovation at Neste.

As a concrete example of the recent developments in innovation, Neste is developing two projects that contribute to further developing the Porvoo refinery in Finland into renewable hydrogen and CO₂ utilisation as well as advanced biofuels production from lignocellulosic wastes and residues. The project for clean hydrogen and recovery of carbon aims at delivering fast and efficient reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through innovative transformation of the Porvoo refinery, where it introduces carbon capture and storage (CCS) and electrolysis solutions that allow decarbonisation of production at the refinery. With the clean hydrogen and recovery of carbon project, Neste also aims to gather a network of leading European technology suppliers and R&D institutes and to lay the foundation for a world-class European hub for renewable hydrogen and CO₂ utilisation.

The lignocellulosics project aims at converting forestry-based waste and residue raw materials into advanced biofuels at the Porvoo refinery. Complementing Neste’s existing renewables production, processing woody biomass wastes and residues into biofuels could replace significant volumes of fossil fuels.

If realized, both projects would strongly contribute to reaching both Finland’s and the EU’s climate targets. They have also been invited for the shortlist of 70 candidates in the application process for the EU’s Innovation Fund, which is one of the world’s largest funding programs for the demonstration of innovative low-carbon technologies.

Source: Neste, press release, 2021-06-03.