Surf Air

At a Glance

Industry

Industrial Goods and Manufacturing

Project Types

Sustainability and Energy Management Strategy, Zero Emission Vehicles, Freight and Logistics

Year

2022

Location

Hawthorne, CA

Summary

Jose Hernandez developed a model for Surf Air Mobility’s (SAM) to determine their emissions profile over the next five years for six different business use cases.

Goals

Surf Air Mobility’s operations are projected to grow significantly over the next five-years. SAM intends to deploy several carbon reduction technologies in order to abate carbon emissions from its operations and gain a better understanding of the impact of these strategies. SAM enlisted Jose Hernandez to develop a flexible model that enables scenario creations to determine associated cost savings and emissions reduction.

Solutions

Jose approached the challenge using a three-part approach: 

  • Identifying projected network growth for SAM’s operations. Upon engaging with various stakeholders Jose was able to project the number of planes within SAM’s future operations.

  • Assigning an emissions profile and associated cost for each strategy. He analyzed the incorporation or sustainability aviation fuel and hybrid planes at varying capacities to determine the associated costs for unabated emissions in each scenario.  

  • Develop recommendations to make each scenario a possibility. Jose proposed a series of solutions to expedite the incorporation of sustainable aviation fuel and outline short-term solutions to lower SAM’s emissions profile. 

Potential Impact

Using a mix of sustainable aviation fuel and hybrid planes, SAM could offset between 12,000,000 to 378,000,000 lbs of CO2 emissions over the next five years. This could lead to a cost savings of 7% to 36% over the baseline case allowing SAM which would allow the SAM to reinvest this capital in future electrification R&D project.   

As a result, SAM has the ability to understand the benefits and risks associated with decarbonizing their operations over the next five years. 


Related Links