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Octopus Hydrogen to supply green hydrogen for zero emission aviation
Octopus Hydrogen, Octopus Energy Group’s newly established hydrogen arm, is to provide green hydrogen to ZeroAvia’s R&D centre at Cotswold Airport in Kemble, UK, during the testing, certification and first commercial operations of its zero emission hydrogen-electric aircraft powertrain technology.
ZeroAvia will supplement on-site electrolysis hydrogen production with supply from Octopus Hydrogen in order to power its HyFlyer II project – a UK government-backed programme to develop a certifiable 600 kW hydrogen-electric fuel cell powertrain which will power a 19-seat aircraft with 500 nautical mile range.
The company plans to bring this powertrain technology to market by 2024, enabling early adoption of commercial zero emission flights. Octopus Hydrogen will provide more than 250 kg/d of green, fuel cell grade, high pressure hydrogen for delivery into ZeroAvia’s mobile refuelling unit.
Aviation is a key future use case for green hydrogen – as recognised in the UK government’s Hydrogen Strategy. ZeroAvia and partners in HyFlyer projects have already developed the Hydrogen Airport Refuelling Ecosystem (HARE), which includes an on-site electrolyser. This system was used to power the flight testing programme of a six-seat Piper Malibu aircraft as part of HyFlyer I and is in continued use as part of HyFlyer II. The company identified that for the larger programme, an additional ready supply of green hydrogen was necessary to supplement on-site production.
Octopus Hydrogen aims to bring to market a locally distributed ‘green hydrogen as a service’ proposition for heavy goods transportation, energy storage, industrial applications and aviation to accelerate those sectors’ transition to a clean and zero carbon future.
‘Global aviation accounts for around 2% of global human-induced CO2 emissions. So finding a way to maintain the benefits of flight without destroying our planet is a hugely exciting opportunity and critical for the UK to achieving net zero,’ comments William Rowe, Founder and CEO of Octopus Hydrogen.
‘Hydrogen-electric aviation is the only practical path to decarbonising flight at scale, as well as removing other harmful emissions from aviation that contribute to global warming,’ adds Sergey Kiselev, Vice President Europe, ZeroAvia.
