Spray Engineering Devices Limited (SED) will receive ₹150 crore in government financial assistance under Pradhan Mantri JI-VAN Yojana to build a 91 KLPD second-generation ethanol biorefinery at Wave Sugar in Dhanaura, Uttar Pradesh. The plant is the latest project to land grant capital under India’s flagship cellulosic-ethanol scheme, administered by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas through the Centre for High Technology.
What makes this plant a SAF story rather than a road-fuel story is the technology stack. SED is pairing Ankur Scientific Energy Technologies’ oxygen-enriched biomass gasification with LanzaTech’s gas-fermentation platform. Agricultural residue is gasified into a synthesis gas (CO, CO2 and H2), which the LanzaTech microbe converts directly into ethanol. That ethanol can be sold into the road-fuel pool under India’s E20 program, or upgraded to jet via the alcohol-to-jet (ATJ) pathway. SED’s release lists SAF intermediates among future possible outputs alongside green chemicals, rather than committing the plant to ATJ as its primary route.
The future of the sugarcane industry lies beyond sugar and conventional ethanol. It lies in creating integrated bio-industrial ecosystems where agricultural residues become a valuable resource for clean fuels, green chemicals, and sustainable economic growth.
“The future of the sugarcane industry lies beyond sugar and conventional ethanol,” said SED Managing Director Vivek Verma. “It lies in creating integrated bio-industrial ecosystems where agricultural residues become a valuable resource for clean fuels, green chemicals, and sustainable economic growth.” SED Director for Biofuels and Green Chemicals Sukhraj Soni called the project “a significant advancement in India’s biofuel landscape.”
PM JI-VAN Yojana is India’s flagship support scheme for second-generation cellulosic ethanol, administered by MoPNG. The release does not disclose the total project cost or the financing balance against the ₹150 crore grant.
The SAF context: India does not yet have a binding SAF blending mandate. ATJ is one of two pathways advancing domestically alongside HEFA co-processing, but its domestic case rests on whether cellulosic ethanol from agri-residue can scale alongside the E20 road-fuel program without deepening the food-versus-fuel tension around sugarcane and FCI rice that has shadowed the 1G ethanol program. A gas-fermentation pathway like LanzaTech’s bypasses food-grade sugars entirely, which is why a 2G plant of this size matters to the SAF conversation rather than only the ethanol conversation.
What to watch: SED has not announced an ATJ offtake counterparty for the Dhanaura plant. IndianOil-LanzaJet at Panipat is the only announced commercial-scale domestic ATJ build, but it has not signalled merchant ethanol demand. Watch through the second half of 2026 for an offtake announcement that connects Dhanaura to Panipat or to a fresh ATJ counterparty.
Source: PR Newswire India
