Supply chain design principles for SAF production in Switzerland using AnyLogistix

Sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) are one option to reduce GHG emissions in the hard-to-abate aviation sector in the medium term. Among the different pathways that exist for SAF production, experts expect Power-to-Liquid (PtL) to be one of the most relevant ones in the future as it does not rely on limited resources. This pathway uses large amounts of (green) hydrogen and CO2 as feedstock. As the supply of these feedstocks has not yet been scaled to the necessary quantity, many questions regarding the design of a SAF supply chain remain unanswered. Using the simulation and optimization software AnyLogistix, this work aims to derive supply chain design principles for the SAF production from a transport perspective for the use-case of SAF production in Switzerland. Questions that will be addressed are for example if it is more beneficial from an environmental and economic perspective to produce SAF in close proximity to the feedstock or rather at the place of consumption, and what transport emissions occur in the SAF supply chain. The results enable informed decisions related to trade-offs in SAF production options. For this, a network optimization model including different modes of transport for the different compounds is used to optimize the SAF production network. Preliminary results show that it is cheaper to produce hydrogen directly at a power plant and then transport liquid hydrogen to the SAF plant compared to transmitting the electricity through the grid and producing hydrogen locally at the SAF plant.