Rolls-Royce SMR and Equilibrion Assess Nuclear-Powered Sustainable Aviation Fuel Production

Rolls-Royce SMR and project development company Equilibrion have signed a memorandum of understanding to assess the technical and economic feasibility of producing sustainable aviation fuel using small modular nuclear reactors. The collaboration evaluates whether SMR-powered fuel plants could enable large-scale production of synthetic aviation fuel at commercial scale.

Under the collaboration, Equilibrion's Eq.flight proprietary modular system — which produces SAF at commercial scale with lower lifecycle emissions than other technologies — would be applied to produce e-SAF using electricity and heat from Rolls-Royce SMRs through a power-to-liquids process. Rolls-Royce SMR is a small modular reactor developer majority-owned by Rolls-Royce, designed to generate low-carbon electricity with high reliability and flexible deployment. The companies estimate that the technologies could produce more than 160 million litres of SAF per year per Rolls-Royce SMR, meeting approximately one-third of the UK's target for power-to-liquids SAF to reach 3.5% of total jet fuel supply by 2040.

SAF currently accounted for just 0.6% of airlines' total fuel consumption in 2025, according to the International Air Transport Association, despite production nearly doubling that year. Scaling SAF production faces barriers including high initial costs and feedstock availability, particularly for advanced synthetic SAF pathways that do not depend on biological feedstocks. Nuclear-derived electricity and heat can provide the consistent, high-temperature energy needed for the power-to-liquids synthesis process more reliably than intermittent renewable sources, potentially enabling commercial-scale e-SAF plants with stable operating economics.

Equilibrion Director Caroline Longman highlighted that each Eq.flight facility has the potential to generate around 10,000 skilled local jobs over its lifetime, adding an economic development dimension to the SAF production case. The MOU represents an early-stage assessment rather than a committed project, with technical and economic feasibility studies required before investment decisions. For India, which is developing both nuclear energy and green hydrogen capacity, the nuclear-to-SAF pathway is worth monitoring as a potential future application of India's small modular reactor programme — particularly given the country's ambition to develop domestic SAF production capacity under its national biofuel policy.

Key figure — 160 million litres of SAF per year per SMR