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Hydrogen propulsion innovator ZeroAvia is back at the Farnborough International Airshow with its largest exhibit yet. The company, which splits its operations between Washington state and the UK, will also announce this week commercial agreements with a pair of airlines and the developer of a new seaplane.
The first of these deals to be announced early on Monday morning will see Swiss start-up Jekta select ZeroAvia's fuel cell power generation system as the basis for a planned hydrogen-electric version of its PHA-ZE 100 amphibious aircraft. Jekta anticipates the technology will allow its 19-passenger aircraft to operate on routes of up to around 326 nm, which is around four times the range of the battery-electric version currently in development.
At the Farnborough show, attendees will have the opportunity to see examples of the hardware behind the company’s hydrogen fuel cell-powered engines. ZeroAvia will also display designs for the 600-kilowatt ZA600 engine it’s developing to convert regional airliners such as the 19-seat Dornier 228 to hydrogen power under supplemental type certificates.
In addition to the complete hydrogen-electric engines it offers for airplane retrofits, ZeroAvia also plans to sell various individual components separately, including the electric motors, fuel cell systems, and power electronics. It is manufacturing these parts at a factory it opened in Everett, Washington earlier this year.
Since announcing the component line in April, ZeroAvia has seen “quite a bit of demand” for those parts, company founder and CEO Val Miftakhov told AIN. The company is also investing in developing ground infrastructure to support hydrogen-powered flight operations.
ZeroAvia’s order book for engines also continues to swell. The company has already accrued nearly 2,000 pre-orders and boasts an backlog worth up to $10 billion. Earlier this month American Airlines agreed to purchase 100 of ZeroAvia’s larger, 2-megawatt ZA2000 hydrogen-electric engines to convert 70-seat Bombardier CRJ700 regional jets.
ZeroAvia aims to install the first ZA600 powertrain conversion kits under supplemental type certificates beginning in 2025, with the larger ZA2000 units to follow in 2027.
“In December we submitted our engine designs to the Federal Aviation Administration in the U.S. and the Civil Aviation Administration in the UK, which was a huge milestone, [because it] meant that we and the regulators were confident enough in our tests today, and the designs, to accept the project,” Miftakhov said.
“Now these are active projects at both regulators, so this is the first time we're at a major airshow with our technology under certification. It's pretty exciting.”
During this week's show, ZeroAvia is holding daily presentations and fireside chats starting at 3:30 p.m. at its stand in Hall 1. On Monday Miftakhov will kick off the events with a talk on zero-emissions flight technology. Tuesday’s discussions will center on the hydrogen fuel ecosystem and operating economics of hydrogen-electric aircraft.
On Wednesday, ZeroAvia chief financial officer Georgy Egorov will lead a presentation titled “Financing the Clean Future of Flight”—a topical subject following the news that Universal Hydrogen, another propulsion system developer, ran out of money and closed its business in late June.
ZeroAvia will end the show on Thursday with discussions around zero-emissions flight routes and how hydrogen-electric propulsion technologies might scale for larger aircraft.