Miloch
February 19th 20, 01:52 AM
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200211-the-electric-plane-leading-a-revolution
Aviation is one of the fastest rising sources of carbon emissions from
transport, but can a small Canadian airline show the industry a way of flying
that is better for the planet?
As air journeys go, it was just a short hop into the early morning sky before
the de Havilland seaplane splashed back down on the Fraser River in Richmond,
British Columbia. Four minutes earlier it had taken off from the same patch of
water. But despite its brief duration, the flight may have marked the start of
an aviation revolution.
Those keen of hearing at the riverside on that cold December morning might have
been able to pick up something different amid the rumble of the propellers and
whoosh of water as the six-passenger de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver took off and
landed. What was missing was the throaty growl of the aircraft’s nine-cylinder
radial engine.
In its place was an all-electric propulsion engine built by the technology firm
magniX that had been installed in the aircraft over the course of several
months. The four-minute test flight (the plane was restricted to flying in clear
skies, so with fog and rain closing in the team opted for a short trip) was the
first time an all-electric commercial passenger aircraft had taken to the skies.
“It was the first shot of the electric aviation revolution,” says Roei
Ganzarski, chief executive of magniX, which worked with Canadian airline Harbour
Air Seaplanes to convert one of the aircraft in their fleet of seaplanes so it
could run on battery power rather than fossil fuels.
For Greg McDougall, founder of Harbour Air and pilot during the test flight, it
marked the culmination of years of trying to put the environment at the
forefront of its operations.
Harbour Air, which has a fleet of some 40 commuter floatplanes serving the
coastal regions around Vancouver, Victoria and Seattle, was the first airline in
North America to become carbon-neutral through offsets in 2007. A one-acre green
roof on their new Victoria airline terminal followed. Then in 2017, 50 solar
panels and four beehives housing 10,000 honeybees were added, but for McDougall,
a Tesla owner with an interest in disruptive technology, the big goal was to
electrify the fleet.
McDougall searched for alternative motor options for a couple of years and had
put the plan on the backburner when Ganzarski first approached him in February
2019. “He said, ‘We’ve got a motor we want to get certified and we want to fly
it before the end of the year,’” McDougall recalls.
The two companies found their environmental values and teams were a good match
and quickly formed a partnership. Eleven months later, the modest Canadian
airline got what McDougall refers to as their “e-plane” off the ground, pulling
ahead of other electric flight projects, including those by big-name companies
Airbus, Boeing and Rolls-Royce.
The project came together in record time considering how risk-adverse the
aviation industry is, says McDougall. “Someone had to take the lead,” he says.
“The reason I live in British Columbia is because of the outdoors: protecting it
is in our DNA. When it came to getting the benefits from electric flight it made
sense for us to step in and pioneer the next step.”
Electric flight has been around since the 1970s, but it’s remained limited to
light-weight experimental planes flying short distances and solar-powered
aircraft with enormous wingspans yet incapable of carrying passengers. But as
the threat posed by the climate crisis deepens, there has been renewed interest
in developing electric passenger aircraft as a way of reducing emissions and
airline operating costs.
Currently there are about 170 electric aircraft projects underway
internationally –up by 50% since April 2018, according to the consulting firm
Roland Berger. Many of the projects are futuristic designs aimed at developing
urban air taxis, private planes or aircraft for package delivery. But major
firms such as Airbus have also announced plans to electrify their own aircraft.
It plans to send its E-Fan X hybrid prototype of a commercial passenger jet on
its maiden flight by 2021. But only one of the aircraft’s four jet engines will
be replaced with a 2MW electric motor, powered by a combination of an onboard
battery and generator attached to a turboshaft engine, which still uses fossil
fuels, inside the fuselage.
This makes Harbour Air something of an outlier. As a coastal commuter airline,
it operates smaller floatplanes that tend to make short trips up and down the
coastline of British Columbia and Washington State, which means its aircraft can
regularly recharge their batteries. The company sees itself in a position to
retrofit its entire fleet of floatplanes and make air travel in the region as
green as possible.
This could bring some advantages. The efficiency of a typical combustion engine
for a plane like this is fairly low – a large proportion of the energy from the
fuel is lost as waste heat as it turns the propeller that drives the aircraft
forward. Electrical motors have fewer moving parts, meaning there’s less
maintenance and less maintenance cost.
Erika Holtz, Harbour Air’s engineering and quality manager, sees the move to
electric as the next major aviation advancement, but warns that one stumbling
block has been the perception of safety. “Mechanical systems are much better
known and trusted,” she says. In contrast people see electrical systems as a bit
unknown – think of your home computer. “Turning it off and on again isn’t an
option in aviation,” she adds.
But it’s the possibility of spurring lasting change in aviation that’s made
working on the Harbour Air/magniX project so exciting for Holtz. Aviation
technology has stagnated over the past decades, she says. “Although there have
been incremental improvements in certain technologies, there hasn't been a major
development change in aviation in 50 years.”
One area that requires further development is battery capacity. Many experts
doubt that large fully electric passenger airliners will be available any time
soon – current battery technology simply does not offer as many miles per kilo
compared to aviation fuel.
The power density in aviation fuel is high, in the neighbourhood of 12,000 watt
hours per kilogram. A lithium ion battery is only in the region of 200 watt
hours per kilogram.
Harbour Air’s short-distance flights on small, single and twin engine planes
have lower power demands which mean they don’t need heavy batteries. “Most of
our routes are within the range of technology that exists today,” McDougall
says.
This ability to use existing technology, including the 62-year-old Beaver
airframe and the Nasa-certified lithium ion batteries, means the certification
process to meet the Federal Aviation Agency and Transport Canada requirements is
expected to be easier than it would be with a plane built from the ground up.
Harbour Air hopes to get paying passengers in its eplanes in under two years.
“Canada isn't always known as an innovation centre,” says Holtz. “It's very
regulated and aviation itself is very regulated. But Transport Canada has been
trying to help us get through hurdles instead of putting them up.”
But Harbour Air’s efforts to electrify their fleet are unlikely to have a major
impact on aviation emissions.
“Two to 12 passenger aircraft are only a tiny fraction of global aviation
emissions,” says Lynnette Dray, senior research associate at University College
London’s Energy Institute. “Even looking at all scheduled flights under 500
miles (which are performed by many sizes of aircraft, most of which are much
bigger than two to 12 seats), less than 10% of global scheduled passenger fuel
use and CO2 emissions can be substituted.”
Where Dray sees the Canadian airline having a bigger impact is with public
perception. “There’s a lot of value in getting prototype models to market so
that the technology has a chance to become familiar and trusted,” she says.
Blazing a trail for other electrical aircraft projects has been a major goal for
Harbour Air and magniX. According to the The International Council on Clean
Transportation, aviation contributes an estimated 2.4% of global carbon
emissions with 24% of global passenger transport-related CO2 being attributed to
flights originating in the US. This should be a strong motivator for change,
says Ganzarski.
“I think the idea of electric aviation – getting rid of emissions and lowering
operating costs – is something that the worldwide community should embrace,” he
says. “The more companies get into it, the better. But we’ll be there right in
front, leading the way.”
The emissions from travel it took to report this story were 4kg CO2, travelling
by bus, train and car. The digital emissions from this story are an estimated
1.2g to 3.6g CO2 per page view.
*
Aviation is one of the fastest rising sources of carbon emissions from
transport, but can a small Canadian airline show the industry a way of flying
that is better for the planet?
As air journeys go, it was just a short hop into the early morning sky before
the de Havilland seaplane splashed back down on the Fraser River in Richmond,
British Columbia. Four minutes earlier it had taken off from the same patch of
water. But despite its brief duration, the flight may have marked the start of
an aviation revolution.
Those keen of hearing at the riverside on that cold December morning might have
been able to pick up something different amid the rumble of the propellers and
whoosh of water as the six-passenger de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver took off and
landed. What was missing was the throaty growl of the aircraft’s nine-cylinder
radial engine.
In its place was an all-electric propulsion engine built by the technology firm
magniX that had been installed in the aircraft over the course of several
months. The four-minute test flight (the plane was restricted to flying in clear
skies, so with fog and rain closing in the team opted for a short trip) was the
first time an all-electric commercial passenger aircraft had taken to the skies.
“It was the first shot of the electric aviation revolution,” says Roei
Ganzarski, chief executive of magniX, which worked with Canadian airline Harbour
Air Seaplanes to convert one of the aircraft in their fleet of seaplanes so it
could run on battery power rather than fossil fuels.
For Greg McDougall, founder of Harbour Air and pilot during the test flight, it
marked the culmination of years of trying to put the environment at the
forefront of its operations.
Harbour Air, which has a fleet of some 40 commuter floatplanes serving the
coastal regions around Vancouver, Victoria and Seattle, was the first airline in
North America to become carbon-neutral through offsets in 2007. A one-acre green
roof on their new Victoria airline terminal followed. Then in 2017, 50 solar
panels and four beehives housing 10,000 honeybees were added, but for McDougall,
a Tesla owner with an interest in disruptive technology, the big goal was to
electrify the fleet.
McDougall searched for alternative motor options for a couple of years and had
put the plan on the backburner when Ganzarski first approached him in February
2019. “He said, ‘We’ve got a motor we want to get certified and we want to fly
it before the end of the year,’” McDougall recalls.
The two companies found their environmental values and teams were a good match
and quickly formed a partnership. Eleven months later, the modest Canadian
airline got what McDougall refers to as their “e-plane” off the ground, pulling
ahead of other electric flight projects, including those by big-name companies
Airbus, Boeing and Rolls-Royce.
The project came together in record time considering how risk-adverse the
aviation industry is, says McDougall. “Someone had to take the lead,” he says.
“The reason I live in British Columbia is because of the outdoors: protecting it
is in our DNA. When it came to getting the benefits from electric flight it made
sense for us to step in and pioneer the next step.”
Electric flight has been around since the 1970s, but it’s remained limited to
light-weight experimental planes flying short distances and solar-powered
aircraft with enormous wingspans yet incapable of carrying passengers. But as
the threat posed by the climate crisis deepens, there has been renewed interest
in developing electric passenger aircraft as a way of reducing emissions and
airline operating costs.
Currently there are about 170 electric aircraft projects underway
internationally –up by 50% since April 2018, according to the consulting firm
Roland Berger. Many of the projects are futuristic designs aimed at developing
urban air taxis, private planes or aircraft for package delivery. But major
firms such as Airbus have also announced plans to electrify their own aircraft.
It plans to send its E-Fan X hybrid prototype of a commercial passenger jet on
its maiden flight by 2021. But only one of the aircraft’s four jet engines will
be replaced with a 2MW electric motor, powered by a combination of an onboard
battery and generator attached to a turboshaft engine, which still uses fossil
fuels, inside the fuselage.
This makes Harbour Air something of an outlier. As a coastal commuter airline,
it operates smaller floatplanes that tend to make short trips up and down the
coastline of British Columbia and Washington State, which means its aircraft can
regularly recharge their batteries. The company sees itself in a position to
retrofit its entire fleet of floatplanes and make air travel in the region as
green as possible.
This could bring some advantages. The efficiency of a typical combustion engine
for a plane like this is fairly low – a large proportion of the energy from the
fuel is lost as waste heat as it turns the propeller that drives the aircraft
forward. Electrical motors have fewer moving parts, meaning there’s less
maintenance and less maintenance cost.
Erika Holtz, Harbour Air’s engineering and quality manager, sees the move to
electric as the next major aviation advancement, but warns that one stumbling
block has been the perception of safety. “Mechanical systems are much better
known and trusted,” she says. In contrast people see electrical systems as a bit
unknown – think of your home computer. “Turning it off and on again isn’t an
option in aviation,” she adds.
But it’s the possibility of spurring lasting change in aviation that’s made
working on the Harbour Air/magniX project so exciting for Holtz. Aviation
technology has stagnated over the past decades, she says. “Although there have
been incremental improvements in certain technologies, there hasn't been a major
development change in aviation in 50 years.”
One area that requires further development is battery capacity. Many experts
doubt that large fully electric passenger airliners will be available any time
soon – current battery technology simply does not offer as many miles per kilo
compared to aviation fuel.
The power density in aviation fuel is high, in the neighbourhood of 12,000 watt
hours per kilogram. A lithium ion battery is only in the region of 200 watt
hours per kilogram.
Harbour Air’s short-distance flights on small, single and twin engine planes
have lower power demands which mean they don’t need heavy batteries. “Most of
our routes are within the range of technology that exists today,” McDougall
says.
This ability to use existing technology, including the 62-year-old Beaver
airframe and the Nasa-certified lithium ion batteries, means the certification
process to meet the Federal Aviation Agency and Transport Canada requirements is
expected to be easier than it would be with a plane built from the ground up.
Harbour Air hopes to get paying passengers in its eplanes in under two years.
“Canada isn't always known as an innovation centre,” says Holtz. “It's very
regulated and aviation itself is very regulated. But Transport Canada has been
trying to help us get through hurdles instead of putting them up.”
But Harbour Air’s efforts to electrify their fleet are unlikely to have a major
impact on aviation emissions.
“Two to 12 passenger aircraft are only a tiny fraction of global aviation
emissions,” says Lynnette Dray, senior research associate at University College
London’s Energy Institute. “Even looking at all scheduled flights under 500
miles (which are performed by many sizes of aircraft, most of which are much
bigger than two to 12 seats), less than 10% of global scheduled passenger fuel
use and CO2 emissions can be substituted.”
Where Dray sees the Canadian airline having a bigger impact is with public
perception. “There’s a lot of value in getting prototype models to market so
that the technology has a chance to become familiar and trusted,” she says.
Blazing a trail for other electrical aircraft projects has been a major goal for
Harbour Air and magniX. According to the The International Council on Clean
Transportation, aviation contributes an estimated 2.4% of global carbon
emissions with 24% of global passenger transport-related CO2 being attributed to
flights originating in the US. This should be a strong motivator for change,
says Ganzarski.
“I think the idea of electric aviation – getting rid of emissions and lowering
operating costs – is something that the worldwide community should embrace,” he
says. “The more companies get into it, the better. But we’ll be there right in
front, leading the way.”
The emissions from travel it took to report this story were 4kg CO2, travelling
by bus, train and car. The digital emissions from this story are an estimated
1.2g to 3.6g CO2 per page view.
*