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In November 2020, it was announced that Grön Fuels, a subsidiary of Fidelis New Energy LLC, was planning to build a $9.2 billion renewable fuels facility at the Port of Greater Baton Rouge.
The massive clean energy complex would produce low-carbon transportation fuels—sustainable aviation fuel, renewable diesel, renewable naphtha and renewable propane—and would become North America’s largest renewable fuels facility once operational. The announcement was huge news for Baton Rouge, but not much has been shared about the facility’s development as of late.
In emails sent to Business Report staff this week, Fidelis New Energy President and COO Bengt Jarlsjo provided an update on how the project is coming along.
According to Jarlsjo, the facility’s original design has been adapted to align with the new regulatory landscape created by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
The IRA introduced “substantial benefits to the project,” incentivizing the production of sustainable aviation fuel as well as the production of clean hydrogen through the utilization of FidelisH2, a patented technology that enables the production of lifecycle carbon-neutral hydrogen from natural gas and renewable energy.
Fidelis New Energy is currently working toward a final investment decision with its partners as it awaits finalized IRA rules from the federal government.
“We now have a build-out path that enables the start of the construction and independent operations of the [sustainable aviation fuel] production portion of Grön Fuels while enabling the additional values of the FidelisH2 technologies to be added after the IRA rules that impact them are finalized,” Jarlsjo writes.
While the facility was originally expected to begin production in 2025, Jarlsjo writes that it is now expected to be operational in 2027 based on current equipment lead times.
