French green and renewable hydrogen produce Lhyfe on Thursday announced it has entered in agreement with Canada’s SAF+ Consortium to explore potential for production of e-SAF from green and renewable hydrogen, at a production site located in the Le Havre, France.

The partners are aiming for a facility in the port region of Le Havre, where Lhyfe would build a green hydrogen production site with a capacity of more than 100 tonnes per day (300 MW of installed electrolysis capacity) to supply an e-SAF production site that SAF+ is planning to build.

The industrial complex would be connected to the hydrocarbon transport network in order to transport the e-SAF obtained from Le Havre to airports in the Paris region, as well as in northern and eastern France via the existing infrastructure.

The project is expected to launch in 2030.

“Through this ambitious agreement with SAF+, we are demonstrating our determination to help decarbonise not only industry and road transport, but also air transport, which in 2020 accounted for 2.9% of global CO2 emissions. Green and renewable hydrogen is now a mature solution that has established itself as one of the pillars of decarbonisation. It can and must now be deployed as quickly as possible, including in the aviation industry,” said Matthieu Guesné, CEO, Lhyfe.

Lhyfe produces green and renewable hydrogen through the electrolysis of water, at production units powered by renewable energy. The company’s first site has already been operational since the second half of 2021, and two further sites in France were inaugurated in December 2023. Several other sites are currently under construction or extension across Europe.

“This agreement between Lhyfe and SAF+ shows our shareholders and stakeholders that our European strategy is well on track. Demand for SAF in the coming years will be exponential, so we now need to be able to demonstrate that viable solutions will be put in place in the short term. The partnership signed today between two leaders like Lhyfe and SAF+ is proof that we can achieve these objectives,” explained SAF+ CEO Jean Paquin.

SAF+ International Group is developing commercial e-SAF production plants with annual production capacity of over 100m litres of drop-in SAF. Its first plant is set to be operational by 2028.