Investments in renewable jet fuels: Barriers and opportunities for investors

Abstract

Stimulating investments to enhance the development of advanced biofuels has been a challenge for many years. Previous studies showed general reasons for the lack of investments and provided recommendations for better policies. However, these studies have often a wide technological focus and do not take different investor goals into account specifically. Therefore, this thesis puts the investors perspective central to find barriers and opportunities that influence investments into the Renewable Jet Fuel (RJF) sector. In order to do so, first an insight in the relative representation of three investor types (public, private, strategic) in the advanced biofuel sector is provided. This is followed by an assessment of the Technological Innovation System (TIS) to find the factors influencing investors. The third and final objective is to identify clear barriers and opportunities that influence investments in the RJF sector.

Academic and grey literature was used to obtain insights in the activity of investor types in the advanced biofuel projects. The TIS was systematically analysed with a structural research, an analysis of the phase of development and a function analysis. Finally, the barriers and opportunities are identified by conducting interviews with investors and relevant stakeholders from the RJF sector. The results indicate that strategic and public investors are driving investment in the current projects while private investors remain hesitant to invest. The reason for this early involvement of strategic investors is twofold: The aviation industry wants to grow sustainably from 2020 and the expectation exists that mandates are going to control the market in the future. On the other hand, private investors are put off by the high risks in the projects, due to uncertainties about policy, feedstock issues and the low oil price. The analysis also showed that the legacy of failed biofuel projects and the low knowledge level of investors about biofuels have a negative influence on investments in Renewable Jet Fuels.

Based on these results, implications are found for theory and policymakers. The focus on investors within the TIS framework enabled the researcher to include external factors and create more specific policy recommendations. This method also helped to build upon the new body of literature regarding non-economic factors influencing the investment decision making process. For policymakers this thesis showed the importance of stable policies that enable a level playing field to create fair competition between different biofuel technologies. Furthermore, an independent knowledge network should be created to educate investors as well as policy makers about the progress of RJF to overcome the biased information from project owners or intermediaries