“Novonesis in India continues to prioritize innovation and customization for local needs”
In an exclusive interview, Puneeth Kumar KT, Business Director for Planetary Health Biosolutions, Novonesis South Asia shares his exclusive insights on Indian biofuel market trends, his company’s key offerings, ongoing initiatives, and key priorities.
How competitive is India in the global biofuel market post the Global Biofuel Alliance initiative, and where do you see it in the next five years?
India has significantly strengthened its competitiveness in the global biofuel market following the launch of the Global Biofuel Alliance in 2023. This initiative, led by India along with major nations like Brazil and the US, aims to position biofuels as a key solution to the global energy transition and contribute to socio-economic growth by accelerating its adoption.
India’s biofuel industry has experienced rapid growth due to coordinated policies, strong political support, and an abundance of feedstocks. Today, India has emerged as the world’s third-largest producer and consumer of ethanol, thanks to a remarkable near-tripling of production over the past five years. The country has rapidly increased its ethanol production capacity, achieving 17.98% ethanol blending in petrol as of February 2025. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), India has the potential to nearly triple its biofuel consumption and production over the next five years by removing roadblocks to higher ethanol blends and diversifying biofuel use to blend with diesel and jet fuel. We anticipate that the Government’s initiatives to improve feedstock availability, including for increasing grain acreage, developing high-yield corn varieties, and expanding Sweet Sorghum coverage, will yield positive results.
We also expect to see a greater push for production of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) within India, with the government of India setting indicative targets of 1% SAF blend by 2027 and increasing to 2% by 2028. Besides, we expect India to be a frontrunner in leveraging low CI ethanol for domestic use (such as SAF) and for export markets, with the commissioning of new 2G ethanol production facilities.
How is Novonesis contributing to India’s biofuel journey through its biosolutions?
At Novonesis, we conduct pioneering research in bioenergy to convert agricultural feedstocks like grains and biomass into clean energy solutions. Our integrated and localized innovations enable biofuel producers to be competitive, efficient, and sustainable. Our biosolutions (enzymes and yeast) have increased ethanol yield by over 3% globally, enhancing plant efficiency and reducing energy consumption. These solutions have supported the reduction of over 60 million tons of CO2 emissions annually. Novonesis innovations, particularly in relation to enzymes and yeast, aid in higher ethanol yield for ethanol producers, which, in turn, support the Government of India’s Ethanol Blending Programme (EBP). In the context of grain based or 1G biofuels, we provide advanced enzymes and yeast solutions to optimize fermentation processes and enhance the conversion of starch-based grains into ethanol.
Two critical factors solidify the biofuels program: ensuring feedstock availability and optimizing producers’ profitability. Novonesis addresses both. Our plant health solutions improve crop yield, strengthening feedstock availability for biofuels and supporting higher blending rates. Our biofuels solutions enable ethanol plants to monetize byproducts, ensuring robust profitability. Novonesis also plays a critical role in disseminating new technology development, industry best practices and deployment know-how, leveraging different communication outreach methods. Additionally, we continue to strengthen supply operations to meet growing demand and ensure strong capacity utilization.
Our commitment extends to both first-generation (1G) and second-generation (2G) bioethanol production, utilizing technological advancements and collaborations. Biodiesel is another essential biofuel that can be efficiently produced using advanced enzymes, even with varying feedstocks.
“Two critical factors solidify the biofuels program: ensuring feedstock availability and optimizing producers’ profitability. Novonesis addresses both.”
Can you elaborate on the specific technologies and solutions Novonesis has developed globally to enhance biofuel production, including second and third-generation biofuels?
We have a diverse portfolio of biosolutions (enzymes and yeasts) to produce diverse biofuel types. Our solutions powers grain and biomass-based ethanol production across the globe as we continue to innovate and expand our solutions to new feedstocks.
In the conventional ethanol value chain (with sugarcane being the dominant feedstock), with Biosolutions, we are exploring value addition across the sugar cane ecosystem from farm-to-fuel. In collaboration with farmers and the sugar industry, Novonesis is working to secure more yield per acre in farm and to reduce losses in sugar processing. This could significantly add to sugar and ethanol output and further sugar industry’s profitability.
In grain ethanol or 1G space, Novonesis operates with Fortiva® and Spirizyme® range of products that are recognized as best-in-class products in liquefaction and saccharification segments respectively – for their clear distinction in providing superior ethanol yield and supporting plant efficiency. Our Innova® range of yeast solutions are designed to deliver 2%+ ethanol yield, relative to standard market products, and offers reduction in glycerol and organic acids. In the 2G ethanol space, we introduced the advanced Cellic® enzyme technology, specifically tailored for diverse feedstocks including rice straw and bamboo.
For biodiesel production, Novonesis’ Eversa® range catalyzes the conversion of oils and fats into biodiesel. Our solutions are suited to various FOG feedstocks with varying free fatty acid (FFA) levels, allowing biodiesel producers flexibility to use/switch multiple feedstocks, reduce the chemical use and increase the yield.
Any pilot projects or collaborations in India and other parts of the world to demonstrate your solutions in real-world applications?
In one of our recent collaborations with a leading corn-based ethanol producer in South India (250 KLPD capacity), we were able to enable plant throughput improvements by 20% thereby supporting upto 2% increased yield in ethanol. The improved throughput and increased yield resulted in savings for the producer of approximately INR 4.5 crore per annum.
In conjunction with technology players, Novonesis has also been able to tailor enzyme blends for second generation (2G) ethanol production using feedstocks such as rice straws, bamboo, amongst others- a classic example of how we innovate and customize for local needs. Novonesis is working with a soon to-be-commissioned 2G ethanol biorefinery with bamboo as a feedstock – an example of versatility of biosolutions in increasing low carbon ethanol.
Another example of our collaboration in the 2G ethanol space has been with Raizen in Brazil. We collaborate with Raizen, a leading biofuels producer to produce 2G ethanol more efficiently. The partnership works to reduce the production cost, increase capacity and reduce the carbon intensity of biofuels to enable companies and countries to meet their global decarbonization targets.
In terms of partnerships, how do you engage with research institutions, policymakers as well as refineries, or the automotive sector to scale biofuel solutions?
We believe that the path towards achieving net-zero and sustainable transitions across the world requires a collaborative approach. The potential of biosolutions can be truly harnessed through strong partnerships, be they with customers, academia, or policymakers. Across the world, and within India, we participate within international organizations and industry associations which support our sustainability commitments, and we use these platforms to exchange ideas, explore partnerships and inform policymakers.
Given Novonesis’ presence across the farm-to-fuel value chain, we collaborate with various partners and bring various stakeholders together, with a potential to increase existing feedstock availability and develop alternative feedstocks for biofuels production, producing and monetizing by-products such as corn oil and DDGS. This highlights Novonesis’ holistic approach to the sector, consistently finding ways to make a positive impact.
“Government can play key role in removing roadblocks to higher ethanol blends, enabling feedstock sustainability, adopting new innovations and creating a conducive environment.”
Your views on the current regulatory landscape for biofuels in India? What further policy support or incentives are required to accelerate the adoption?
The success that we are experiencing in the biofuel sector today in India is due to the collaborative effort from all stakeholders, where policy makers provided the vision, created the framework, encouraged innovation which the industry embraced enthusiastically. In the process, decarbonization is being achieved, but beyond that, the gains made in the biofuels space are also positively impacting the economy, creating jobs, encouraging innovation and earning source for farmers – a win-win scenario.
Having said that, it is now incumbent on the industry to become more efficient and expand economies of scale while adopting advanced technological interventions. This will propel the Indian ethanol industry to the next level, while advancing the Government’s efforts towards energy security and climate action. At the same time, we believe that the Government can play key role in removing roadblocks to higher ethanol blends, enabling feedstock sustainability, adopting new innovations and creating a conducive environment for other biofuels beyond ethanol.
Going forward, what would be the key priorities for Novonesis in the biofuels segment in South Asia, especially in India?
For Novonesis in India, our key priorities will continue to be innovation and customization for local needs. We will continue to focus on further strengthening our first generation (1G) portfolio, while expanding our contributions in 2nd generation (2G) bioethanol production, utilizing technological advancements and collaborations that enhance production efficiency. Particularly within the grain ethanol space, we will continue to augment our portfolio with advanced liquefaction solutions to boost distillers’ corn oil extraction. This will include our customized glucoamylase series Spirizyme® for varying feedstock and process conditions, and industry-leading yeast solutions under the Innova® range to improve ethanol yield and plant efficiencies. In addition, we are investing to expand our technical and analytical capabilities and ramp-up supply chain operations to address needs of growing India biofuels ecosystem.
Further, Novonesis aims to go beyond providing industry solutions by sharing global best practices through its initiative, PRABAL. This includes a self-paced learning platform and an agile digital sharing platform, with plans to expand their reach in the coming months to benefit the biofuels ecosystem.
*This interview was first published in the May 2025 edition of BioVoice News.
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