Paving the way towards an electrifying future for air travel

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Paving the way towards an electrifying future for air travel

The Spirit of Innovation’s electric air speed record flight may only last minutes, but the hope is that the impact of its technologies will be felt for decades to come. Because the ultimate aim of the ACCEL project is to help usher in a new era of air travel – one that helps us to overcome the environmental challenges of the present and the future.

At the heart of this is the Spirit of Innovation’s boundary-pushing battery: a very special source of power almost three years in the making. It offers the perfect showcase for the unique way we work towards our sustainability goals: it taps our unrivalled aerospace and electrical engineering expertise, but through our partners also draws on the finest talent from other worlds, such as Formula E auto-racing and high-powered battery development. “It’s a truly global project, integrated across regions and skillsets,” says ACCEL Project Manager, Matheu Parr. And, as he goes on to say, the scale of the project’s ambition is encapsulated in its name: “we’re trying to demonstrate the opportunities in electrification, and then to push a strategy that accelerates across the business.”

Why we’re championing electrification

Along with digitalisation, electrification is key to ushering in essential efficiencies and greener ways of working, ensuring a more sustainable future for our industry and planet.
By 2030, 1 billion more people will be living on earth than today, with 6 billion annual flyers and 5 billion people residing in cities – it’s essential to reduce the environmental impact of their journeys without limiting the positive impact that travel offers.
As one of the world’s leading industrial technology companies, we’re addressing these needs with solutions that combine a wealth of engineering experience with an agile, pioneering spirit!

From hybrid-electric powered planes to cleaner, quieter air taxis… and beyond

The noticeable excitement around the ACCEL team is not solely focused on the imminent adrenaline rush that an all-electric air speed record attempt will bring. Every challenge overcome and every breakthrough made has a potential real-world application. And those applications are becoming clearer and getting closer by the day.

Take electric vertical take-off vehicles (eVTOL), for example, which in their initial form are may feature the versatility of helicopters, but with a much-reduced environmental impact. This vision for cleaner, quieter ways of navigating – and connecting - a city could see not only a transformation in the way people travel, but in the way cities are designed for increasingly urban, densely populated societies. We’re exploring a number of different types of eVTOL solutions, in both hybrid and all- electric-powered iterations. But key to making them viable, sustainable and capable of covering increasingly longer ranges at greater speeds will be the advancement of battery power technologies. Which is why the Spirit of Innovation’s battery, capable of reaching speeds of 300mph+ and completing a journey of over 100+ miles on charge feels like such an important stepping-stone.

Our learnings from the ACCEL project also feed into a number of projects that are focused on delivering an altogether more familiar type of electric air travel. Because we need propulsion systems that enable reduced fuel consumption and emissions, but without compromising aircraft endurance and performance, hybrid-electric technologies are set to become increasingly common on the types of aircraft we’re used to seeing today. One such example of this is our “H3PS” research project – so-called because it aims to demonstrate technology delivering 3 ‘H’s: ‘high power’, ‘hybrid powertrain’ and a ‘high-scalability aircraft’. The aircraft propeller can be powered by a combustion engine directly, an electric motor, or by both at the same time – with the aim of reducing fuel consumption while still maintaining and even extending the aircraft’s range. As with the Spirit of Innovation, we’re introducing these new technologies to a light aircraft initially… But also, as with the Spirit of Innovation, we’re doing so with a view to making them scalable for larger aviation aircraft.

eVTOLs have the potential to make cities in which passengers, cargo, emergency services and more are transported through the sky a reality, in clean, quieter electric-powered ‘air-taxis’.

Our work on systems that combine electric and combustion engine is bringing truly sustainable air travel closer than ever, without compromising the journeys we all want and need to take.

This is why Rolls-Royce is developing energy storage systems (ESS) that will enable aircraft to undertake zero emissions flights of over 100 miles on a single charge. In order to deliver this ground-breaking technology, we are planning an £80m investment in ESS over the next decade, that will create around 300 jobs by 2030. Aerospace-certified ESS solutions from Rolls-Royce will power electric and hybrid-electric propulsion systems for eVTOLs (electric vertical takeoff and landing) in the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) market and fixed-wing aircraft, with up to 19 seats, in the electric commuter market. By 2035, Rolls-Royce is planning to integrate more than 5 million battery cells per annum into modular systems. These modules will deliver market-leading energy density levels

Rolls-Royce has been delivering battery solutions for many years and has designed 10 different aerospace battery systems, using state-of-the-art cell technology. Of these batteries, four designs have already flown in three aircraft, accumulating more than 250 hours of flight experience and another two designs will complete their first flight in aircraft in 2021. This includes a battery being used in the Spirit of Innovation aircraft.

These are just some examples of the areas we’re focusing on, as we progress towards a new era of all-electric and hybrid-electric aviation alongside innovation being developed in the use of Sustainable Aviation Fuels and Hydrogen. But as a company, we’re built on our ability to push our ideas and innovations in bold new directions. So we’re exploring numerous ways in which our electric technologies might enrich the world around us – and help us reach our goal of net zero emissions by 2050.

“The technological innovations our people are pioneering will help shape our planet’s destiny. Few companies are better placed to pioneer the vital solutions we need to create a net zero future.”