ZeroAvia signs partnership agreement with Masdar to explore hydrogen

LONDON (ICIS)–ZeroAvia and Masdar have signed a partnership agreement to explore hydrogen production and supply at key locations, it was announced 23 August.

The initial phase of the partnership will focus on projects in both North America and Europe, but will also look into the potential for hydrogen-fuelled flights in the UAE.

The UAE is aiming to produce 1.4 million tonnes/year of hydrogen by 2031 and expects to increase hydrogen production to 15m tonnes/year by 2040.

Masdar is due to be responsible for 1m tonnes/year of the 2030 target and is jointly owned by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), the Mubadala Investment Company, and the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA), and is targeting 100GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030.

ZeroAvia is aiming for commercial operations of hydrogen-fuelled flights by 2025 and has secured close to 2,000 engine pre-orders from airlines.

ZeroAvia said that a 90-seat aircraft at commercial airports will require 1 tonne of hydrogen for each short regional flight.

HYDROGEN IN AVIATION

Sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) have to account for 2% of overall fuel supplied at airports within the European Union by 2025, reaching 70% by 2050, in addition to a target of 42% of renewable fuels of non-biological origin to be hydrogen by 2030 and 60% by 2035.

Hydrogen has been muted as a potential viable aviation fuel for both short flights and medium flights, however, long-haul flights are looking more towards SAFs due to the requirement of the size of the hydrogen fuel tank intruding on payload capacity and complexities and engineering challenges surrounding liquefied hydrogen as an aviation fuel.