HyPoint partners with Piasecki Aircraft to deliver next-generation hydrogen fuel cell systems for eVTOL aircraft

HyPoint has entered into a mul­ti-phase col­lab­o­ra­tive devel­op­ment agree­ment with Piasec­ki Air­craft Cor­po­ra­tion (PiAC) to devel­op and cer­ti­fy hydro­gen fuel cell sys­tems for eVTOL appli­ca­tions.

The partnership’s objec­tive is to deliv­er a cus­tomis­able FAA-cer­ti­fied and zero car­bon-emis­sion hydro­gen fuel cell sys­tem to the glob­al eVTOL mar­ket­place. This will offer eVTOL air­craft devel­op­ers four times the ener­gy den­si­ty of exist­ing lithi­um-ion bat­ter­ies, twice the spe­cif­ic pow­er of exist­ing hydro­gen fuel cell sys­tems and up to a 50 per cent reduc­tion in direct oper­at­ing costs rel­a­tive to tur­bine-pow­ered rotor­craft.

The ini­tial $6.5 mil­lion agree­ment will cul­mi­nate in the devel­op­ment of five 650kW hydro­gen fuel cell sys­tems for use in Piasecki’s PA-890 eVTOL Com­pound Heli­copter, which is expect­ed to be the world’s first manned hydro­gen-pow­ered heli­copter.

Dr. Alex Iva­nenko, founder and CEO of HyPoint, said: “The much-antic­i­pat­ed arrival of eVTOL air taxis, and sim­i­lar air­craft has been severe­ly hin­dered by the tech­ni­cal lim­i­ta­tions of exist­ing pow­er sys­tems. This new strate­gic part­ner­ship will dra­mat­i­cal­ly accel­er­ate deliv­ery time­lines by equip­ping eVTOL man­u­fac­tur­ers with next-gen­er­a­tion hydro­gen fuel cell sys­tems that meet their unique needs.

“Togeth­er, HyPoint and Piasec­ki will work to grow the emerg­ing eVTOL mar­ket by deliv­er­ing a cer­ti­fied mul­ti-plat­form solu­tion for eVTOL mak­ers. In addi­tion, we share a com­mon vision for mak­ing safe, cost-effec­tive zero car­bon-emis­sion flight a real­i­ty for con­sci­en­tious busi­ness­es and con­sumers around the world.”

Piasec­ki will gain exclu­sive license to the tech­nol­o­gy cre­at­ed as part of the part­ner­ship, where HyPoint will main­tain own­er­ship of its under­ly­ing hydro­gen fuel cell tech­nol­o­gy. Piasec­ki and HyPoint intend to make the new sys­tem avail­able to eVTOL mak­ers by cus­tomis­ing it for use in their vehi­cles. Alter­na­tive­ly, eVTOL air­craft OEMs may choose to part­ner with HyPoint to devel­op a new sys­tem based on their spe­cif­ic needs.

HyPoint’s rev­o­lu­tion­ary approach utilis­es com­pressed air for both cool­ing and oxy­gen sup­ply to deliv­er a hydro­gen fuel cell sys­tem that rad­i­cal­ly out­per­forms exist­ing bat­tery and hydro­gen fuel cell alter­na­tives.

Test­ing has shown that HyPoint’s fuel cell sys­tem will be able to achieve up to 2,000 watts per kilo­gram of spe­cif­ic pow­er, which is more than triple the pow­er-to-weight ratio of tra­di­tion­al (liq­uid-cooled) hydro­gen fuel cells sys­tems. It will also boast up to 1,500 watt-hours per kilo­gram of ener­gy den­si­ty, enabling longer-dis­tance jour­neys.

Piasec­ki is cur­rent­ly work­ing with the FAA to out­line cer­ti­fi­ca­tion cri­te­ria, as well as with the Unit­ed States Air Force, by way of its AFWERX STTR/SBIR pro­gram, which is co-invest­ing in the devel­op­ment of advanced hydro­gen-pow­ered aero­nau­ti­cal tech­nol­o­gy.

John Piasec­ki, Pres­i­dent and CEO of Piasec­ki, said: “We are laser-focused on the devel­op­ment and qual­i­fi­ca­tion of a 650kW sys­tem for our PA-890 eVTOL Com­pound Heli­copter, which would be the world’s first manned hydro­gen-pow­ered heli­copter. Suc­cess will pave the way for col­lab­o­ra­tion with oth­er eVTOL OEMs with dif­fer­ent plat­form sizes to ensure broad appli­ca­tion of this tech­nol­o­gy.

“Ini­tial lab test­ing fund­ed by Piasec­ki last win­ter demon­strat­ed the tech­ni­cal via­bil­i­ty of HyPoint’s hydro­gen fuel cell sys­tem. While we are bench­mark­ing HyPoint’s tech­nol­o­gy against alter­na­tives and con­tin­ue to rig­or­ous­ly test and val­i­date find­ings, we are very opti­mistic. Our objec­tive is to devel­op full-scale sys­tems with­in two years to sup­port on-air­craft cer­ti­fi­ca­tion test­ing in 2024 and ful­fil exist­ing cus­tomer orders for up to 325 units start­ing in 2025.

In Decem­ber 2020, HyPoint was named a win­ner of NASA’s iTech Ini­tia­tive, in which break­through tech­nolo­gies were ranked based on cri­te­ria that includ­ed tech­ni­cal via­bil­i­ty, ben­e­fits to human­i­ty, and com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion poten­tial. HyPoint’s avi­a­tion appli­ca­tions — includ­ing eVTOL, UAS, per­son­al air vehi­cles, and elec­tric air­craft — were con­sid­ered to be espe­cial­ly inno­v­a­tive.