‘Guilt-free flying’ | ‘World’s first hydrogen airline’ places order for 70 H2-fuelled powertrains
A British eco-millionaire came a step closer to realising his claim to run the world’s first hydrogen-only airline today (Tuesday), after his company placed an order for 70 hydrogen-fuelled powertrains from Anglo-American aviation engineering firm ZeroAvia.
Ecojet, launched by renewables entrepreneur Dale Vince in July, plans to retrofit ZeroAvia’s 600kW fuel cells — called “jet engines” by ZeroAvia— to its fleet of existing 19-seater aircraft in 2025 if and when the engines are granted certification by the UK’s aviation regulator.
Vince’s airline, which intends to begin commercial flights between Southampton and Edinburgh in 2024, will run for a year using conventional fuels while the fuel cells are being assessed.
“We don’t have to give up flying to live a green lifestyle or to get to net zero as a country – and this is big news,” said Vince today. “The technology is here now and the planes are coming very soon – carbon free, guilt-free flying is just around the corner. And although aviation is responsible for only a small part of all global emissions, it occupies a far bigger space than that in our psyche.”
He added: “The hearts and minds value of this new opportunity outweighs the carbon issue significantly. It shows that everything we need to do, can be done, with a low to zero carbon footprint. And that is big news and a big encouragement to us all.”
Ecojet has also placed an order for ZeroAvia’s 2MW hydrogen fuel cell powertrains, which the Anglo-American company is targeting for entry-into-service by 2027.
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This would enable Ecojet to power larger regional turboprops, capable of carrying 80 passengers.
The order for 2MW engines is larger than that for the 600kW models, ZeroAvia said, but it is not clear whether the order for 70 engines comprises both orders, and how many of each Ecojet has requested.
Two of the 600kW fuel cells would be required for each plane — meaning that if even a third of the order is comprised of the smaller models, Ecojet would be able to retrofit eleven aircraft.
Hydrogen Insight has reached out to Ecojet and ZeroAvia but neither had responded at the time of publication.
The pair also plan to work together with ZeroAvia’s retrofit partner Monte and with airports to identify and finance “the first pathways to hydrogen-electric commercial operations”, said ZeroAvia, in the company’s first nod to the infrastructure challenges faced by hydrogen plane operators worldwide.
Experts have told Hydrogen Insight that the regulation and set-up of airport infrastructure required for hydrogen transport, storage and fuelling can take months or even years.
ZeroAvia also today insisted that green hydrogen-powered flight would have a lower lifetime emissions profile per passenger than fully occupied cars, rail or coach travel.
However, there is so far no commitment from Ecojet to use only green hydrogen in the planes.
The news comes as Virgin Atlantic, 51% owned by British billionaire Richard Branson, made the first transatlantic flight using sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs). But the flight, which took off from London this morning to John F Kennedy airport in New York, was powered was SAFs comprised of 88% hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids (HEFA) feedstocks, or cooking oils — which experts warned would not meet carbon emissions reduction targets for aviation.
