Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation

The Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) is one of the Government's main policies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport in the UK. In the 2020 obligation year it included:

• road transport
• non-road mobile machinery (including inland waterway vessels which do not normally operate at sea), tractors, and recreational craft that do not normally operate at sea
• renewable fuels in aircraft

It is relevant to not only replacement liquid fuels but can also be related projects where Biogas is used in vehicles[3].

Put into action in 2008, the RTFO subsidy is intended to deliver reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from fuel used for transport purposes by encouraging the supply of renewable fuels[3].

Under the RTFO, fuel suppliers have an obligation to provide a volume of sustainable renewable fuel which is calculated as a proportion of the overall volume of fuel they supply for road transport and non-road mobile machinery (NRMM) purposes. The obligation is relevant to fuel suppliers providing at least 450,000 litres of fuel per year (the obligation period)[3].

Renewable Transport Fuel Certificates (RTFCs) are gained by supplying sustainable renewable fuels and can be redeemed by suppliers to meet their obligations. One certificate may be claimed for every litre of sustainable renewable fuel supplied, or if fuel from certain wastes or residues, fuel from dedicated energy crops, or other renewable fuels of non-biological origin (RFNBO) are supplied then the supplier will receive double the RTFCs per litre or kilogram supplied as certain fuels are further incentivised. Alternatively, suppliers can ‘buy out’ of their obligation by paying a fixed sum for each litre of renewable fuel they do not provide[3].

In March 2023 a consultation commenced[4] (closing in June 2023) on proposals for the UK Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) mandate (proposed to commence in 2025) which it is proposed will remove it from the RTFO framework and require that SAF is made from biofuels derived from wastes or residues, recycled carbon fuels (RCFs) or power to liquid (PtL) using low carbon electricity.

In the RTFO Annual Report for 2020[5] it identifies that there were 42 different feedstocks, 25 of which were wastes, sourced from 91 different countries. The most common feedstocks for UK renewable fuels were as follows:

The top 5 waste feedstocks in 2020 were used cooking oil, food waste, starch slurry(waste), category 1 tallow and waste pressings from the production of vegetable oils.