Sustainable Aviation Fuel Generation from Carbon-Captured CO2: Electricity Impact and Demand-Side Flexibility Modeling

As the aviation sector seeks to reduce its environmental impact, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) has emerged as a promising solution for lowering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Despite SAF's compatibility with existing infrastructure and its potential for significant emissions reductions, large-scale SAF production poses challenges to electricity grid operations and planning. Building on prior work, which analyzed the capacity expansion needs and corresponding costs for different SAF production levels in the U.S. power grid, this study explores the operational impacts of SAF demand within a net-zero GHG electricity grid for the U.S. Specifically, we develop a production cost modeling approach to evaluate the daily grid operation impacts of SAF demand and examine the role of demand-side flexibility as a strategy to mitigate these impacts. By integrating an optimization model that treats SAF production demand as a flexible load, we analyze how this flexibility could impact renewable energy utilization and reduce system costs. Our results show that with lower capacity factor for the SAF production process, demand-side flexibility reduces reliance on non-renewable resources and lowers total system costs by up to 84% and 86%, respectively. This result indicates actionable insights for integrating SAF demand in future grid planning and operations.