Porsche Partners On A New Plant To Produce Synthetic Fuels In Chile

Porsche has announced that it will open a new manufacturing pilot plant that is a partnership with Siemens Energy. The plant is described as the world's most carbon-neutral fuel (eFuel) production plant, and is located in Punta Arenas, Chile. The groundbreaking ceremony for the facility happened on September 10.

Porsche expects the manufacturing facility will produce about 130,000 liters of eFuel in 2022. After that, the sports car manufacturer plans to expand capacity for the plant in two additional stages. By 2024, the plant will be expanded to produce 55 million liters of fuel, and by 2026, it will produce about 550 million liters of eFuel. While groundbreaking has just begun for the project's pilot phase, Siemens is already underway with preparations for the next commercial phase.

Porsche began the project and will use the eFuels in its combustion engine vehicles. The push for eFuels is part of the overall sustainability strategy for Porsche. The automaker has a plan to be net carbon dioxide neutral as early as 2030. eFuels can help it reach those goals. In addition, Porsche notes that about 70 percent of all sports cars it has ever built are still on the road today, and eFuels will help those older cars be more environmentally friendly.

It also notes that the iconic 911 is well-suited to use of eFuels. The new plant being built in Chile will also produce fuel that will be used in the Porsche Mobile 1 Supercup racing cars starting in 2022. The facility is also part of the National Green Hydrogen Strategy that Chile has implemented.

Chile plans by the year 2025 to have an electrolyzer capacity of five gigawatts. It wants to increase that capacity to 25 gigawatts by 2030. Chile has a stated goal of producing the cheapest hydrogen in the world and becoming the leading exporter of green hydrogen and derivatives in the world.