World’s first industrial-scale solar fuel plant

About DAWN

DAWN is the world’s first industrial-scale solar fuel plant. With this plant, Synhelion will demonstrate the entire Sun-to-Liquid process on an industrial scale. DAWN is located in Jülich, Germany, and will feature the four key innovations developed by Synhelion: heliostat field, solar receiver, thermochemical reactor, and thermal energy storage. DAWN will produce several thousand liters of solar fuel per year.

The commissioning of DAWN takes place in 2023/2024. The fuels produced will be used to demonstrate various possible use cases. For example, Swiss International Air Lines will be the first airline to fly on Synhelion’s solar kerosene. After building the industrial demonstration plant DAWN, Synhelion plans to commission the first commercial solar fuel plant in Spain, which will be able to produce 1’000 tons of solar fuel per year.

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Main specifications

Total mirror surface area: 1’500 m2

Solar input power: 600 kW

Tower height: 20 meters

Financed by Synhelion + EUR 3.92 M from BMWK

Brainergy Park Jülich, Germany

Customers: Swiss International Air Lines and other key customers

Construction update

March 2024

Fischer-Tropsch unit

The Fischer-Tropsch unit has been delivered to the plant DAWN site. This facility plays a crucial role in converting sustainably produced syngas, the universal key to renewable liquid fuel, into synthetic crude oil (also called syncrude). Following this conversion, the syncrude undergoes additional refinement in a refinery to yield jet fuel, diesel, or gasoline.

February 2024

Solar tower

Synhelion has completed the construction of the solar tower. The tower of DAWN is about 20 meters high, and it houses our key innovations to produce solar fuel: the receiver, the reactor, and the thermal energy storage. The tower is uniquely configured to facilitate efficient fuel production. Positioned facing north, its design minimizes shadow casting on the mirror field.

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How it works

Watch this video to see how DAWN technology works.

A mirror field tracks the path of the sun, reflecting the solar radiation and concentrating it onto the receiver on the solar tower. Here, the solar energy is converted into high-temperature process heat of over 1’000°C. This heat is fed to the reactor, together with methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) of biowaste origin, as well as water (H2O), and drives the thermochemical reaction in the reactor to produce syngas, a mixture of H2 and CO. The syngas is then processed by standard gas-to-liquid technology into solar fuels. The integrated thermal energy storage enables round-the-clock fuel production.

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The road that led to DAWN

See below to learn about the most important milestones that led to the construction of DAWN, the world’s first industrial-scale solar fuel plant.

2022

Synhelion starts construction of DAWN

With the groundbreaking ceremony, we mark the start of construction work on DAWN – the world’s first industrial demonstration plant to produce synthetic fuels using solar heat. The facility will be the first to demonstrate the entire process from concentrating sunlight to producing synthetic liquid fuel on an industrial scale.

Press release

2022

Syngas production on industrial scale

In 2022, Synhelion produced the world’s first solar syngas on an industrial scale at the DLR solar tower in Jülich (DE), reaching the last decisive technological milestone to start the industrial production of solar fuels.

Press release

2019

Medium-scale demonstration

In 2019, the SUN-to-LIQUID project produced solar jet fuel at the IMDEA Energy solar concentrating plant in Madrid (ES) within the framework of the EU Horizon 2020 program.

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2019

Small-scale demonstration

In 2019, we also demonstrated the Sun-to-Liquid technology under real field conditions in the centre of Zurich, Switzerland. The solar mini-refinery at ETH Zurich produced the world’s first carbon-neutral fuel from ambient air and sunlight.

Press release

2014

Proof of concept

After decades of top research at ETH Zurich, we produced the world’s first solar jet fuel from H2O and CO2 in the lab, proving that the Sun-to-Liquid technology not only works on paper but also in real life.

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