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Hydrogen and electric aircraft projects backed with fresh £113m of funding

Posted on February 7, 2023 by dishanth

The Department for Transport (DfT) and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) have today (7 February) announced the funding for the projects as part of their collaborative work to decarbonise the aviation sector.

Aviation accounts for around 3% of annual global emissions and, pandemic aside, its absolute emissions and share of annual global emissions have continued to increase over the past two decades. The UK Government has pledged that all airport operations and domestic flights should be net-zero in operation by 2040 and that all international flights should be net-zero by 2050.

For flights, the priority for the near to medium term for the Government is to improve efficiency and to scale the use of alternative fuels, often called Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs). But, in the longer term, the Government sees emerging technologies including hydrogen-powered aircraft and electric aircraft playing a role.

Scaling these emerging technologies is the reason for the provision of the new funding, which is being made through the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI). The funding announced today includes a blend of Government funding and private funding, totalling £113m.

£36.6m of the funding is going to a hydrogen engine project led by Rolls-Royce, developing the integrated powerplant architecture for a liquid hydrogen gas turbine.

A further £14.8m is being allocated to another hydrogen project led by Rolls-Royce, under which experts are developing the combustor element of a liquid hydrogen gas turbine. This project is called Hydrogen Engine System Technologies or HYEST for short.

Rolls-Royce and its consortium partners are also being allocated £31.4m for the liquid hydrogen gas turbine project, developing a liquid hydrogen fuel system for the turbine.

A statement on the Rolls-Royce website reads: “While hydrogen can be used directly as a fuel in a gas turbine, it is likely to start in the shorter haul segments, where the aircraft range is shorter.

“Given volume limitations attached to the storage of hydrogen and the limited power density of fuel cells, for long range, SAF fuelling gas turbines will remain the most likely solution moving forward. Hydrogen will offer options in shorter range segments and has the potential to progress onto larger segments, as the technology is proven and hydrogen fuel becomes more readily available.”

In announcing the new funding for hydrogen aircraft, the DfT and BEIS hailed their previous support of ZeroAvia, which completed the maiden flight of its largest hydrogen fuel cell aircraft to date last month. The 19-seater aircraft completed a ten-minute test flight from Cotswold Airport on 19 January.

Electric aircraft

Also receiving funding today is Vertical Aerospace, which is developing a prototype propulsion battery for electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. The Government has today announced £30.8m of funding.

Vertical Aerospace celebrated “wheels up” for the first time in September 2022, as its electric VX4 aircraft completed its first airborne testing. It is hoping to certify the model by 2025, enabling commercial flights of a pilot and up to four passengers. It is aiming for 100 miles of range and cruise speeds of 150mph.

As of September 2022, more than 1,400 conditional pre-orders for the aircraft had been placed. Clients include Virgin Atlantic, American Airlines, Japan Air and Air Asia.

The UK Government has been funding a range of projects in the eVTOL and drone space in recent years. Last April, Urban Air-Port opened what it claimed was the first fully operational eVTOL hub for a trial in Coventry with Government support. Aside from Urban Air-Port, the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund provided funding to more than 40 organisations through the Future Flight Challenge programme in 2021.

Business Secretary Grant Shapps said: “As the whole world moves to greener forms of aviation, there is a massive opportunity for the UK’s aerospace industry to secure clean, green jobs and growth for decades to come. Together with the companies that share our ambitions, we are determined to seize this moment.”

Jet Zero: New steps, old controversies

As well as announcing the new funding today, the Government is opening the latest round of consultations on its Jet Zero Strategy. This time, it is seeking evidence on the best way to decarbonise airport operations in line with net-zero by 2040.

The announcements have been timed to coincide with the next meeting of the Jet Zero Council at Boeing’s offices in London. The Council was set up to help shape the Strategy and facilitate its delivery.

Many green groups have previously accused the Government of letting the aviation industry lead the strategy based on what is financially beneficial to them, rather than what is recommended by climate scientists.

The UK Government’s own advisory body, the Climate Change Committee, has recommended a cap on passenger number growth for the UK to deliver its 2050 net-zero goal and interim carbon budgets. Yet Bristol Airport’s expansion has been permitted and, despite being ruled unlawful in the Court of Appeal, the Heathrow expansion is now pressing ahead. Shapps has supported Heathrow in this decision.

The Government’s approach is, instead, technology-based. It argues that it does not need to cap growth if new technologies scale on time and deliver the stated emissions savings. Today, once again, Shapps is using the rhetoric of “guilt-free” flying and of “not clipping the sector’s wings”.

Source edie

Delta to open innovation lab for low-carbon aviation tech

Posted on January 16, 2023January 16, 2023 by dishanth

Hosted at the company’s international headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, Delta Air Lines has stated that the ‘sustainable skies lab’ will host teams working to both scale and improve existing technologies and those working on “revolutionary” technologies which do not yet exist commercially. Research, design and testing will all be possible at the lab.

On existing technologies, the aim of the lab is to “connect, align, showcase” and accelerate work already underway at Delta by enabling co-working between teams on issues such as electrifying ground equipment and improving operational efficiencies.

Like many other airlines, Delta is using a mix of changes to operational procedures and aircraft upgrades to drive fuel efficiency, with 10 million fewer gallons of fuel used in 2022 than in 2021 by the firm. Older planes including its Boeing 777s have been retired to make way for next-gen aircraft including the A350 and the A300-900neo. Delta claims that these aircraft are 20% more fuel-efficient in terms of fuel used per passenger, per mile travelled.

For technologies that do not yet exist commercially, such as large electric passenger planes and hydrogen passenger planes, the lab will facilitate partnerships aimed at accelerating development. Delta is already partnering with some large aircraft manufacturers, such as Airbus, as well as emerging aircraft innovators like electric plane firm Joby. There will also be partnerships between the private sector and academia.

The strategy for the lab is being spearheaded by Delta’s chief sustainability officer Pam Fletcher. She is being supported by a new council including specialists from across the business, including those working in technical operations, flight operations, fuel, fleet management and customer service.

On collaborating for technology breakthroughs, Fletcher said: “With aviation being a hard-to-decarbonise industry, none of us can do this alone.

“We’re rolling out the welcome mat for disruptors of choice to take advantage of Delta’s global resources to accelerate our path to decarbonization and a fully sustainable travel experience.”

Target evolution

Delta committed to becoming a net-zero business by 2050 in 2021, through the UN-backed Race to Zero initiative. It subsequently had emissions targets for 2035 approved by the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) as aligned with ‘well below 2C’. These targets entail cutting direct emissions (Scope 1) plus indirect emissions from jet fuel by 45%, on an intensity basis, against a 2019 baseline.

Delta is hoping to achieve verification under the SBTi’s net-zero standard, which will require it to strengthen its targets with a commitment for a 90% reduction across all scopes by 2050. The SBTi is notably in the process of phasing out ‘well below 2C’ targets through to 2025, with 1.5C targets needed for net-zero standard verification.

Fletcher has stated that, to meet its climate targets, Delta will need to consider different low-carbon solutions across different timelines. A blog post published in September 2022 by Fletcher states that the company is improving fuel efficiency and electrifying ground operations now, while also cutting single-use plastics. In the medium term, its approach is to scale sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production in partnerships across the industry and with governments, to bring down costs. The, in the long-term, hydrogen and electric aircraft could be commercialised.

“We’re optimistic about early-stage companies pushing the boundaries with futurist thinking on aircraft, propulsion and more, and look forward to fostering collaboration with the industry, academia, and start-ups to accelerate the sustainable future of flight,” Fletcher’s blog states.

Airlines in the UK are, by and large, following the Government’s strategy on decarbonisation – the Jet Zero Strategy. The Strategy bets heavily on efficiencies and SAF. Last month, the UK Government provided its latest tranche of funding for SAF developers, focusing on energy-from-waste and fuels created from carbon captured at industrial plants.

Source edie

Blockchain-verified sustainable aviation fuel scheme launched by Shell, Amex and Accenture

Posted on June 20, 2022 by dishanth

Called Avelia, the scheme is offering around one million gallons of SAF in the first instance, which its co-founders claim makes it the largest of its kind to date. This amount of fuel could cover 15,000 individual business traveller flights from London to New York, the co-founders state.

There are many business flight schemes through which customers can either offset the emissions related to their tickets or purchase SAF, but this is believed to be the first of its scale to utilise blockchain.

Business customers will be able to book flights using the American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) platform and request verification that SAF, equivalent to that which would have been used if their flights had directly been powered with the maximum blend of 50%, has been produced and supplied. Verification will be provided in the form of blockchain-generated tokens, which have a tamper-proof audit trail.

Shell will produce the SAF while Accenture is contributing its IT services and partnering with the Energy Web Foundation to use its existing blockchain platform, powered by Microsoft’s Azure.

Shell currently manufactures SAF using agricultural wastes in Rotterdam, and at a separate facility fed by agricultural wastes and virgin plant feedstocks in Singapore. It is aiming to produce at least two million tonnes of SAFs annually from 2025 and to continue expanding production through to the 2030s, eyeing new production and blending facility locations in markets including the UK to meet these aims.

Shell claims that its SAF can reduce lifecycle emissions by up to 80% when compared with traditional jet fuel, if it is used neat. Current international regulations limit the maximum proportion of SAF in blends to 50%, however. Barriers to using neat SAF include the need for the development of suitable engines and the need to scale up SAF production while avoiding unintended negative consequences, such as poor land-use practices for feedstock crops. SAF currently costs between two and eight times as much as conventional jet fuel, depending on national markets and feedstocks, as it is yet to benefit from the same ‘economies of scale’ benefits as kerosene.

“SAF is a key enabler of decarbonisation in the aviation industry, and it is available today- however, it is currently scarce and costs more than conventional jet fuel,” said Shell Aviation’s president Jan Toschka. “Avelia will help trigger demand for SAF at scale, providing confidence to suppliers like us to further increase investment in production, and in turn helping to lower the price point for these fuels.”

Shell, Accenture, and Amex GBT will notably use the Avelia platform for all of their own business flights.

SAF – the state of play

SAF has proven to be a popular approach to decarbonisation for the aviation industry, which is responsible for 3% of annual global emissions and which – pandemic aside – had been growing rapidly in terms of passenger numbers and emissions for a decade.

It is doubtless so popular because using blends of 50% is a ‘drop-in’ solution, requiring no changes to aircraft – as would be necessary for electrification or the use of hydrogen. The UK’s industry body for sustainability in aviation is planning to prioritise SAF use, efficiencies and offsetting to reach net-zero, and this approach has influenced national policymaking on the issue.

This approach is against the recommendation of the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC). The CCC’s most optimistic forecast for the use of SAF in the UK’s aviation industry is for it to cover 7% of fuel supply in 2030. With this in mind, and with electric and hydrogen technologies for large planes still years from maturity, the CCC has recommended that the Government caps airport expansion and limits the growth in passenger numbers. The Conservative Party has, to date, been staunchly against this approach – as have most large businesses in the sector.

Instead, the Government is planning to deliver a rapid scaling of SAF production. Ministers have asked the industry to collaborate to bring at least three commercial SAF production plants online in the UK by 2025. The Government has partnered with LanzaTech, Velocys and Philipps 66 to help deliver this ambition, through its Jet Zero Council.

To ensure adequate demand for these SAFs, the Government is mulling a SAF mandate. Its proposals involve requirements for jet fuel producers to ensure that at least 10% of their production annually is SAF by 2030, rising to 75% by 2050. The EU is considering a similar mandate.

Source Edie