European multinational Airbus has shown its commitment to greener travel today by signing an agreement with Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) to sink some capital into researching the infrastructure requirements needed to develop hybrid and electric aircraft.
A Memorandum of Understanding will cover this new research project between the European giant and the Scandinavian airline. Aim of this agreement is to develop a hybrid and electrical aircraft to further explore sustainable sources of biofuel. It will involve a joint research project where the two companies work together. This collaboration aims to investigate challenges regarding operations and infrastructure linked to a large scale introduction of hybrid and electrical aircraft in commercial traffic. Final goal of the research will lead to the future development of spark-powered commercial airlines.
Airbus has already strated to build a protfolio of technology demonstrators and is currently testinginnovative hybrid propulsion systems, subsystems and components in order to address long term efficiency goals for building and operating electrical aircraft.
SAS is renowned for its pioneering work to reduce emissions and make flying more ecologically sound. The airline’s goal is to cut its carbon footprint by a quarter by 2030. This it aims to do by modernizing its fleet and increasing its use of biofuels.
A large part of its ongoing work with research institute Rise includes researching and producing biofuel which is currently hard to come by.
"Today’s aircraft can fly on biofuel," SAS CEO Rickard Gustafson told Dagens Industri. "The problem is that it is not possible to buy enough of it, so we want to create opportunities and incentives for large-scale production."
Furthermore, the collaboration also includes a plan to involve a renewable energy supplier to ensure genuine zero CO2 emissions operations are assessed. This multidisciplinary approach—from energy to infrastructure—aims to address the entire aircraft operations ecosystem in order to better support the aviation industry’s transition to sustainable energy.
The project will start in June 2019 and run until the end of 2020.
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