Sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) projects realization gap and state

Global aviation contributes approximately 2–3% of greenhouse gas emissions. Substantial reductions are required to achieve net-zero CO₂ emissions by 2050, along with the widespread adoption of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). Regulatory advancements are accelerating SAF investment and production capacity worldwide. This contribution quantifies the operational SAF production capacity in 2024 and the planned capacity by 2030. We classify SAF production projects based on their development status and calculate the realization gap, representing the difference between the SAF capacity planned to be operational in 2024 and the actual capacity achieved. Figure 1 illustrates the announced SAF capacity globally compared to the realized SAF capacity. The light red shaded area represents the range of SAF capacity based on variations in the proportion of jet fuel within facilities' product output. The realization gap for 2024 is visualized on the right-hand side, showing the difference between announced and actual operational capacity for each year. The range between low and high jet fuel ratios is depicted for both announced and realized capacity, alongside values based on the average jet fuel ratio. Figure 2 presents the expected SAF capacity for 2024, categorized by project status using the average jet fuel ratio.