Assessing the Techno-Economic Impact of Process Flexibility on Methanol- and Syngas-Based e-Kerosene Production

Decarbonizing aviation demands scalable low-carbon technologies to produce sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs). Power-to-Liquid (PtL) technologies use renewable electricity, water, and captured CO2 for e-kerosene production but are challenged by high production costs and the intermittent availability of renewable resources. In this work, we apply a combined design and scheduling approach to optimize equipment sizes and hourly operations over an entire year under variable wind and solar energy input, and we analyze the impact of process flexibility on the overall economics. Two PtL-SAF routes, one involving methanol and the other syngas as the key intermediate, are evaluated. Our results show that the methanol route achieves greater cost reductions with flexible operation, while the syngas route sees limited cost benefits. We highlight process flexibility as critical to PtL-SAF systems’ economic viability and identify flexibility targets beyond which further increase in flexibility results in diminishing returns.