GUILT-FREE FLYING COULD BECOME A REALITY IF ZEROAVIA’S TECHNOLOGY TAKES OFF

Road traffic accounts for 10 per cent of total global carbon emissions, so it’s not surprising that many of the world’s car manufacturers are now promising to build only electric cars by 2030.

In comparison, air traffic is responsible for much less, around three per cent. A single flight produces three tons of carbon dioxide per passenger, but the challenges associated with green flight are bigger.

One company that says it is well on the way to building the world’s first commercial hydrogen-electric plane is ZeroAvia, which has relocated from Bedfordshire to Cotswold Airport near Cirencester.

Last September, ZeroAvia completed the first test flight of a six-passenger airplane powered solely by a hydrogen-powered fuel cell.

The Piper Malibu flew for eight minutes on fuel cell power alone. It reached a height of 1,000 feet and an airspeed of 100 knots (115 mph).

OK, eight minutes at that speed will only get you a few miles down the road, but for the first time the world could see the potential of hydrogen-electric powered aircraft which emits just water vapour during flight. This could be the future of carbon zero air travel, certainly for short or even medium-haul flights.

A lot of people are excited about this technology. In November, the company was named in the USA-based TIME magazine’s 100 best inventions of 2020 and ZeroAvia has attracted investment from British Airways owner IAG Group, among many others.

From California to the Cotswolds

ZeroAvia was established in 2018 by Dr Val Miftakhov. A pilot of both fixed wing aircraft and helicopters Dr Miftakhov is a serial sustainable transport entrepreneur. He was a head of R&D at Google in California for six years before founding tech company eMotorWerks to develop smart grid electric vehicle charging technologies. He sold the business in 2019 and launched ZeroAvia.

ZeroAvia’s first home base was in California. It established its UK base at Cranfield before moving to Cotswold Airport in April, where the project is headed by Sergey Kiselev, Vice-President of ZeroAvia in Europe and best friend of Dr Miftakhov.

Why did the entrepreneurs move to Cotswold Airport from Cranfield, which has a rich history of aerospace research?

Being closer to London, Cranfield’s airspace is a lot busier, said Sergey. And for flight testing of completely new technology, space and flexibility are key.

“Cranfield helped us establish our footprint in the UK. But we needed an airport with more flexibility for flight testing and more space to grow,” he explained.

And ZeroAvia liked the airport owners, who have their own green ambitions.

Cotswold Airport’s CEO, Suzannah Harvey is aiming to make the airport carbon neutral within 10 years. She said: “We are planning to invest around £3 million in putting solar film on our hangar roofs, which will cover all our electrical use. We are also making headway to install electrical vehicle charging points for customers at our restaurant AV8.”

Cotswold Airport also has a flight training school and general aviation traffic, and the South West is an acknowledged centre of aerospace excellence, so securing the skills needed to drive technological innovation is likely to be less challenging. Currently ZeroAvia employs around 30 people at its new base, which will increase to around 50. It is currently advertising a range of jobs on its website.

Guilt free commercial flying a real possibility by 2030

By 2023, ZeroAvia expects to be able to demonstrate flights up to a 500-mile range in a 20-seater aircraft.

And by 2026, the company is aiming for a 500-mile range in aircraft with up to 80 seats increasing by 2030 to more than 1,000-mile range flights in aircraft with 100 plus seats – enough to fly commercial aircraft to the South of France, guilt free.

And flying carbon free might not be more expensive. “Our analysis shows that a hydrogen powertrain is not only competitive in terms of carbon footprint but also in cost savings,” said Sergey. “A 50-70 seat seater turbo prop will be able to compete financially with a small jet. And given that the cost of carbon emissions is increasing and the price of hydrogen dropping, the advantage will get greater.”

With a first flight under its belt, ZeroAvia secured an additional £15 million to kick start the development of a larger engine for a 50+ seater zero emission aircraft. This round of investment brings the company’s total private funding to close to £40 million.

But for a ground-breaking project such as this, private funding isn’t enough. Buy-in from government is essential too. The company’s expanding UK operations are partially supported by a grant from UK’s Aerospace Technology Institute and Innovate UK, and ZeroAvia is part of the UK Government’s Jet Zero Council.

“Aviation is rightly a highly regulated industry and as we develop new technology, we need government regulatory support as well as private investment,” said Sergey. “We found the UK was the best in terms of getting the programmes for the companies like ours funded. It’s the combination of the ease of securing investment money from government and the flexibility in how we can spend it, as long as we spend it on research and development.

“It also helps that the UK has a mature aerospace industry and human capital,” he went on. “For us the talent is an important component. All our engineers are UK based and worked in aerospace or automotive before.”

The appetite for investment in hydrogen power is growing, said Sergey. “Those who have invested in us such as IAG Group, Shell Breakthrough Ventures and Amazon clearly have an interest in such technology working.”

Coupled with the current government appetite to invest in green technologies, the future could be clear blue sky for ZeroAvia.

The challenges of green flight

ZeroAvia says there are no major technological breakthroughs needed to achieve commercially viable flights in a hydrogenpowered plane (and by commercially viable Sergey says that a 19-seater plane is the smallest size which would meet this criteria). However, he says that a lot of research and development is still needed to optimise the technologies to achieve this.

Another significant challenge is securing the right certifications to be able to fly.

It is as safe to fly in a hydrogenpowered plane as one powered by traditional kerosene, said Sergey. Hydrogen is not as flammable as kerosene and is only dangerous if it’s confined in an enclosed space. So ventilation is key, as are automatic valves, and a myriad of other leak detection systems.

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