Neste’s renewable fuel project wins place in EU clean tech funding round
Neste aims to open the door to a wider range of renewable raw materials for fuels.
Finland’s energy company Neste has secured support from the EU Innovation Fund for a new technology to turn forestry residues into low-carbon fuels, in a funding round the European Commission says will back 61 “cutting-edge” projects across the bloc.
Neste’s SCOOP – Sustainable Co-Processing of Challenging Raw materials – project is one of five Finnish initiatives selected from 359 applications. It focuses on developing a co-processing technology for crude tall oil at the company’s Porvoo oil refinery on the south coast of Finland.
Crude tall oil is a by-product of pulp production from pine wood and is listed in Annex IX A of the EU Renewable Energy Directive, making it eligible for use in advanced biofuels. By finding a way to handle such difficult feedstocks, Neste aims to open the door to a wider range of renewable raw materials for renewable fuels and for feedstocks used in polymers and chemicals.
Any large-scale use at Porvoo would still depend on a separate investment decision by the company, which has not yet been taken.
