Synhelion Says Solar Fuels Can Match Fossil Prices at Scale – DNV Validates Below EUR 1,000 per Ton

On 25 April 2026, Swiss SPIN member Synhelion published a cost analysis that, if it holds at industrial scale, redraws the economics of renewable drop-in fuels. According to the company, its production pathway can deliver renewable synthetic jet fuel, diesel and gasoline for less than EUR 1,000 per ton – or below EUR 0.80 per litre – at large-scale deployment. The figures have been third-party validated by DNV, the independent assessment and certification organisation.

That price band sits within the same range as imported refined fossil fuels – a level renewable drop-in fuels have not been able to reach for decades. (Verified fact: cost figure and DNV validation are reported by Synhelion; the figure is third-party reviewed but applies to projected large-scale deployment, not today’s first-of-a-kind plants.)

Why this matters for Power-to-X

Liquid fuels remain hard to replace where energy density matters and where electrification would come too late for the climate goals: long-haul aviation, shipping and heavy-duty road freight, passenger cars with internal combustion engine. Synhelion estimates fossil fuels for global transportation currently account for around 15% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Cost – not technology – has been the binding constraint on switching the relevant volumes to renewable alternatives.

Synhelion frames three converging drivers behind its announcement:

• Geopolitics: fossil fuel supply chains are becoming less reliable.
• Regulation: GHG reduction pressure on transportation is tightening worldwide (RED III, ReFuelEU Aviation, FuelEU Maritime, and now Germany’s RFNBO sub-quota trajectory to 2040).
• Bankability: synthetic fuel projects are starting to reach the maturity level that investors require.

How Synhelion arrives at the cost figure

Synhelion’s cost claim rests on four structural choices that distinguish its thermochemical pathway from both HEFA/HVO biofuels and conventional electrolysis-based e-fuels.

1. No green hydrogen as an intermediate

Most synthetic fuel pathways rely on green hydrogen, which Synhelion describes as one of the largest cost drivers of renewable fuel production. Over the last five to ten years, green hydrogen has remained at EUR 5–10 per kg – substantially more expensive than earlier forecasts, mostly because of electricity prices and underestimated plant CAPEX.

Synhelion’s process instead uses fluctuating renewable electricity, when available, to generate high-temperature process heat that drives a thermochemical reaction. Half of the energy stored in the resulting fuel comes from renewable electricity, the other half from biogenic feedstock. By avoiding the electrolysis step, the company says its process requires roughly three times less electricity than conventional e-fuel pathways.

2. Cheap, scalable carbon feedstock

Every ton of e-fuel typically requires at least three tons of CO2. Sourcing it – whether biogenic CO2 (around EUR 150–250 per ton, per IEA-cited market data) or direct air capture (significantly more expensive) – adds substantial cost and complexity.

Synhelion uses raw biogas from RED-certified sustainable biogenic waste – a mixture of methane and CO2 – so no separate CO2 source is needed. The company also reports that its thermochemical process achieves more than 90% energy and carbon efficiency, with two to three times higher carbon utilisation than other pathways. (Claim: efficiency figures originate from Synhelion’s own cost analysis and have not been independently published in a peer-reviewed format.)

The lipid-based HEFA/HVO pathways that dominate today’s renewable fuel market face a different problem: feedstock scalability. Synhelion cites industry analyses suggesting HEFA will hit its feedstock ceiling between 2030 and 2035 unless vegetable oil cultivation expands materially – which raises its own sustainability questions.

3. Continuous 24/7 operation through low-cost thermal storage

Cheap renewable electricity is intermittent. Synhelion’s answer is a low-cost thermal energy storage (TES) that stores high-temperature heat produced when power is abundant. According to Synhelion, the TES is roughly ten times cheaper than battery storage and allows plants to run at high capacity around the clock without daily ramp-up and ramp-down cycles. Higher asset utilisation, in turn, lowers cost per ton of fuel.

4. Scale-up: larger plants, standard components, optimal locations

The cost number is explicitly a scale projection. Synhelion’s roadmap to get there has four levers: larger plants to spread CAPEX; standardised manufacturing of key components (relevant for its planned transition to a CAPEX-light licensing model from 2030); plant siting in regions with abundant low-cost renewable energy and feedstock (ports and industrial hubs); and continuous improvements in reactor design and process integration.

From DAWN to commercial scale

Synhelion’s DAWN plant in Jülich, Germany – inaugurated in June 2024 – is the company’s first industrial demonstration that integrates all of its core technologies. Since then, Synhelion-derived fuels have been used in a SWISS commercial flight, a passenger bus at Zurich Airport, a Lake Lucerne steamboat, an Eberhard construction excavator, and motorcycle and car demonstrators. In January 2026, SWISS signed a long-term offtake agreement for solar jet fuel.

In other words: the company has demonstrated that drop-in compatibility works across every relevant transport mode. The question shifted from can it run? to can it run at a price the market will pay? The DNV-validated cost analysis is Synhelion’s attempt to answer that second question.

SPIN Perspective

For the Swiss Power-to-X community, three things are worth flagging.

The cost figure is a projection, not a current production cost. DAWN is an industrial-scale demonstration plant; today’s per-ton economics at DAWN are not EUR 1,000. The relevant claim is that at large commercial scale, with optimised plants in favourable locations, Synhelion’s pathway can reach fossil-comparable production cost. This is a structurally credible argument – CAPEX-light licensing, low-cost TES, no electrolysis, biogas as feedstock all point in the same direction – but the empirical proof will come from the first commercial-scale plants, not from DNV’s review of the model.

It reframes the e-fuels-versus-bio-versus-solar-fuels debate. Synhelion’s pathway is neither a classical e-fuel (no green H2) nor a HEFA-style biofuel (no waste oils). It is a thermochemical solar-driven route that uses biogenic carbon, with electricity providing the heat. That is a useful third category to keep in mind when reading SAF and renewable-diesel policy documents, most of which still implicitly assume either electrolytic e-fuels or lipid-based biofuels.

Cost claims need policy frameworks that reward them. A renewable fuel that lands close to fossil parity at scale is still meaningfully more expensive in the first plants. The bankability of those first plants depends on offtake agreements, RFNBO and SAF mandates with credible penalties (see Germany’s recent RFNBO sub-quota decision) and CAPEX support. Without those, even a structurally low-cost technology stalls on the first-of-a-kind problem.

What remains undisputed: Synhelion has put a concrete, third-party-reviewed number on the table. That alone changes the conversation – from “renewable drop-in fuels are too expensive” to “under what conditions does Synhelion’s cost case become real?”

Source: Synhelion company announcement, April 2026. Additional reporting by SolarPACES.