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[Kemble, UK & Hollister, CA: October 2nd, 2023] — ZeroAvia today announced that Deborah Diaz, former NASA Chief Technology Officer, has joined the company’s board as a Non-Executive Director. Deborah will work with ZeroAvia’s executive leadership and existing board members to help accelerate the company on its strategic journey from innovator to global leader and major supplier of zero-emission aircraft engines.

Deborah is currently CEO of Catalyst ADV, a technology and strategic growth advisory firm. She has extensive experience as a board director with Archer Aviation (NYSE: ACHR), Primis Financial (Nasdaq: FRST), Section IO, BRMI and as advisory board director of Intel, Equinix, Dell, and Forcepoint.

Previously, Deborah served as NASA’s Chief Technology Officer and Deputy Chief Information Officer where she managed global system infrastructure, technology innovation, risk management, financial and regulatory stewardship, data protection and supply chain. She also served as CIO for Science and Technology at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Deputy CIO for the USPTO and is a recognized global expert on international energy innovation and ESG risk mitigation

ISELIN, NJ, USA & KEMBLE, UK – BASF Environmental Catalyst and Metal Solutions (ECMS), a global leader in precious metal services and catalysis, and ZeroAvia, the leader in zero-emission propulsion solutions for commercial aviation, have signed an agreement for the supply of membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) and to collaborate on research on next generation MEAs for ZeroAvia’s world-leading high temperature proton exchange membrane (HT-PEM) fuel cell stacks for aviation. The companies will work together to accelerate the commercialization of a high-powered and lightweight MEA for HT-PEM fuel cells, suitable for the aviation market. The HT-PEM fuel cell utilizes ECMS’s Celtec® technology and catalyst expertise. 

As part of this initial agreement, ECMS and ZeroAvia will also work to establish a long-term supply agreement for MEAs, including the supply and sourcing of the associated platinum group metals (PGMs) and PGM containing catalysts. Joint development work aims to enhance the components and materials supplied, thus increasing the performance of ZeroAvia’s overall HT-PEM fuel cell stacks.

For 20 years, ECMS has been a leader in membrane and MEA technology for HT-PEM fuel cells through its Celtec brand. It also has a strong foundation in precious metal services and catalysis.

[Kemble, UK & Hollister, CA: September 18, 2023] — ZeroAvia today announced that Airbus, Barclays Sustainable Impact Capital and NEOM have co-led the company’s latest financing round.   

Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Horizons Ventures, Alaska Airlines, Ecosystem Integrity Fund, Summa Equity, AP Ventures and Amazon Climate Pledge Fund have also participated in the investment. 

This investment will enable ZeroAvia to accelerate progress towards certification of its first engine as well as delivering the company’s mission of a hydrogen-electric engine in every aircraft.  

In conjunction with the investment, Airbus and ZeroAvia have agreed to collaborate on certification approaches for hydrogen power systems. The companies also intend to work together on a number of critical technical areas, including liquid hydrogen fuel storage, flight and ground testing of fuel cell propulsion systems, and development of hydrogen refueling infrastructure and operations.  

ZeroAvia is pursuing hydrogen-electric propulsion systems as the most environmentally friendly and economically attractive solution to aviation’s growing climate change impact. The company’s hydrogen-electric engines use hydrogen in fuel cells to generate electricity, which is then used to power electric motors to turn the aircraft’s propellers, with the only byproduct during flight being water. 

Airbus is a global leader in fostering alternative propulsion using hydrogen. Fuel cell systems are an important part of its ZEROe aircraft concepts program, designed to deliver low-carbon emission airframes of various sizes. The industry major has recently ground tested a hydrogen engine concept at 1.2 MW power.  

The investment will support ZeroAvia’s continued growth and technology development, most notably progressing its first product – ZA600 – through to certification. ZeroAvia recently completed the first stage of flight testing of the prototype ZA600 and is moving to complete design work ahead of certification, targeting 2025 entry-in-service to support up to 20 seat aircraft.  

The funding will also enable ZeroAvia to continue to progress its larger engine program – the ZA2000, a 2-5.4 MW modular powertrain designed to support larger commercial aircraft applications. The company is working on retrofitting a Dash 8 400 76-seat testbed demonstrator provided by Alaska Airlines, with a view to first flight testing with a full size engine in 2024. The investment will help ZeroAvia extend the leadership it has established across core in-house technologies for multi-MW class hydrogen-electric engines, including high temperature PEM (HTPEM) fuel cells, advanced electric motors and power electronics, and onboard liquid hydrogen fuel storage.  

Kemble, UK & Hollister, CA: August 23rd, 2023] — ZeroAvia today announced that it has signed a partnership agreement with Masdar, one of the world’s leading clean energy companies, to explore hydrogen production and supply at key locations.

The partnership with the UAE’s flagship renewable energy company, Masdar, will focus initially on projects in North America and Europe, while also looking at the opportunity to establish clean flight operations in the UAE.

Masdar aims to be a global green hydrogen leader through a “smart first mover” approach, by developing and investing in strategic projects and building scalable platforms in key markets. The company is targeting 1 million tonnes of green hydrogen production per year by 2030.

Masdar’s Green Hydrogen division is already heavily involved in major aviation projects targeting the production of green hydrogen. This new collaboration with ZeroAvia is likely to power the world’s first hydrogen-powered commercial flights.

The UAE aims to produce 1.4 million tonnes of hydrogen annually by 2031 and expects the figure to increase tenfold to 15 million by 2050, showing the scale of the country’s ambitions.  Masdar is deeply committed to building the UAE’s green hydrogen economy and has signed and executed several global collaboration agreements with strategic partners in recent years.

ZeroAvia is working with some of the world’s largest energy companies to convene the provision of fuel for its airline operator customers, as early as 2025. The company is targeting refueling onboard aircraft tanks for up to 90- seat aircraft at commercial airports by the end of this decade. With every such aircraft requiring up to 1 ton of hydrogen per each short regional flight, even a small commercial airport can drive more than a hundred tons of demand daily. All this fuel can be produced via a zero-emission process using renewable electricity.

[Kemble, UK & Hollister, CA: August 10th, 2023] — ZeroAvia today announced that it has developed a world-first, high-performance compressor for fuel cell-based aviation propulsion systems, including the company’s first ZA600 hydrogen-electric powertrain. 

Hydrogen fuel cells promise to deliver true zero-emission flight by delivering electrification, but one key challenge is delivering the high flow of oxygen for the chemical reaction in the stacks to provide sufficient quantities of electricity to power the aircraft. At higher altitudes, air compressors need to be powerful and efficient, while not adding undue weight to the propulsion system and thus impacting payload and range.

The compressor is a world first, designed and tested specifically to comply with all requirements pertaining to hydrogen fuel cell-powered aviation propulsion systems. ZeroAvia’s breakthrough enables the company to incorporate the technology as a core part of its first two hydrogen-electric engines: the ZA600 for 9-19 seat aircraft targeting entry-in-service by 2025, and the ZA2000 for 40-80 seat aircraft with EIS targeted for 2027.

Initial testing of the ZeroAvia compressor indicates that it offers highly stable performance across a large range of power and operating environment requirements. Supporting up to 900kW fuel cell systems, the compressor is many times more powerful than any existing fuel cell compressors and offers superior power density. 

The ZeroAvia compressor has also been designed to operate with zero latency via an innovative flow management approach. The compressor runs on the power provided by the core electric propulsion system, eliminating the additional inverter and electric motor normally required in fuel cell systems. The resulting reduction in complexity will aid certification of ZeroAvia’s powertrains, and fewer components means further reduced weight and greater reliability. 

This weight efficient system coupled with stable performance across a wide range of parameters makes ZeroAvia’s compressor technology an attractive solution for high-power and high-altitude transport applications. The compressor has been designed to meet all environmental conditions and aerospace standards, and the company plans certification testing to begin over the course of the next year. 

The performance to date is validation that ZeroAvia’s overarching powertrain will be capable of delivering large commercial, as well as environmental, benefits to airline operators. The company will also leverage the technology to enable enhanced testing of its HTPEM fuel cell stacks for ZA2000 and larger fixed wing and rotorcraft applications.

[Kemble, UK & Hollister, CA: August 2, 2023] — ZeroAvia today announced that it has signed an agreement to provide its ZA600 hydrogen-electric engines to new operator Surcar Airlines as it looks to bring green flights to the Canary Islands. 

Surcar plans to use Twin Otter seaplanes retrofit with the ZA600 powertrain on sightseeing tours. The newly launched airline is backed by investors including the Danish carrier Nordic Seaplanes. Surcar Airlines is committed to spearheading the electrification of aviation to enable zero-emission flights in the Canary Islands. By pioneering captivating, green sightseeing flights, the company aims to inspire and drive other operators towards adopting sustainable practices, accelerating the transition to a cleaner future for the entire industry.

Surcar Airlines will begin operations with conventionally powered aircraft; the next step will be switching to hydrogen-electric engines to remove all in-flight emissions, providing huge additional reductions in climate and air quality impacts.

ZeroAvia is on track for certification over the next two to three years of the ZA600, 600kW engine for 9-19 seat aircraft over the next two to three years and has a Memorandum of Understanding with De Havilland of Canada, type certificate holder of the Twin Otter.

The European Union is targeting 55 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and Spain’s National Energy and Climate Plan aims to achieve an entirely carbon-neutral transport system by 2050. Such policy action is echoed in consumer attitudes. According to a survey conducted by the European Investment Bank, three-quarters of Europeans plan to fly less frequently in the future for environmental reasons. Delivering clean flight is a strategic imperative for the aviation industry.

[Kemble, UK & Hollister, CA: 19th July, 2023] — ZeroAvia today announced the completion of its initial prototype ZA600 flight testing campaign at Cotswold Airport in the UK. The 10th flight in the initial series was completed last week, and saw a cruise test to establish projections for future ranges using the system, thus teeing up the first cross-country flights as the next stage of testing and demonstration. 

Over the course of the last six months, ZeroAvia has sequentially tested different areas of performance following the breakthrough, world-first flight of the system in January. The campaign has seen the aircraft fly at 5,000 feet, perform an endurance test at 23 minutes, operate in the wide temperature range from just above freezing to almost 30C, and reach the maximum allowable speed under the Permit to Fly issued by the CAA.   

Critically, throughout all phases of testing, the fuel cell power generation and electric propulsion system that are the core components of the novel zero-emission engine, performed at or above expectations. The hydrogen-electric engine has matched the power of the conventional, fossil fuel engine on the opposite wing, with the pilots able to fly with thrust generated only from the experimental clean propulsion system in certain tests.