Hydrogen-electric aircraft developer Zeroavia has announced a collaboration with Canada’s largest airport by land area, Edmonton International Airport (EIA), to explore the development of hydrogen infrastructure at both the main site and the EIA-operated Villeneuve Airport.

The two firms will conduct a pilot programme to fuel a demonstration plane and other operations with a hydrogen refuelling system developed by Zeroavia. The partners plan to initially explore gaseous hydrogen as a fuel, although liquid hydrogen may be necessary to support aircraft with over 50 seats.

$68mn – Zeroavia Series B financing

“We believe that hydrogen will be a key technology to decarbonise aviation and airport operations for a net-zero future. Zeroavia’s innovations, achievements and shared values made it natural for us to develop a collaboration,” says Myron Keehn, EIA’s vice-president for air service, business development, ESG and stakeholder relations.

Zeroavia recently secured an additional $30mn in funding from new investors—banking group Barclays’ Sustainable Impact Capital investment vehicle, Saudi government-backed future city developer Neom and technology fund AENU—which, in addition to an increased commitment from existing investor International Airlines Group, brings the company’s Series B financing to $68mn.

The firm signed an MoU with Alaskan regional airline Ravn Alaska this week to supply 30 ZA2000 modular powertrains to be retrofitted into its De Havilland Dash-8 fleet. And it will also jointly develop 5,000 proton-exchange-membrane fuel-cell stacks for use in aviation with Swedish manufacturer Powercell.

In May, Zeroavia signed an MoU with strategic investor Shell to design and collaborate on a commercial-scale mobile refuelling system at its research and development site in California.

Test flight

Zeroavia’s ZA600 engine is designed to power aircraft with up to 19 seats and is planned for certification in 2024. While the engine has previously been tested in smaller aircraft, the company plans to conduct the first test flight in a 19-seat Dornier 228 this summer.

However, a recently published report from the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch into a failed test flight using Zeroavia’s technology in 2019 found the attempt to switch power from the plane’s lithium battery to its fuel cell resulted in the triggering of overvoltage protection, locking out the inverters and ultimately causing the aircraft to crash.

“While the report does not make specific recommendations for Zeroavia within its conclusions, many of the issues identified in the report were similarly noted in our internal investigation and have subsequently been addressed robustly,” the company says.

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Author: Polly Martin