SKYCHARGE becomes world’s first OEM-independent electric plane charger to be approved by EASA

SKYCHARGE, pow­ered by Green Motion and Pip­istrel, has just become the world’s first OEM*-independent elec­tric plane charg­er to be approved by the Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA).

The news comes after Pipistrel’s Velis Elec­tro air­craft received the first ever type cer­tifi­cate for an elec­tric plane from EASA in June last year. The SKYCHARGE approval is anoth­er impor­tant mile­stone in the quest for envi­ron­men­tal­ly sus­tain­able avi­a­tion.

François Randin, Founder and CEO of Green Motion, which is now part of Eaton, said: “SKYCHARGE is the result of the part­ner­ship between Pip­istrel and Green Motion – two com­pa­nies with rev­o­lu­tion­ary ideas and cut­ting-edge solu­tions.

“By putting our world-class engi­neer­ing teams togeth­er to shape and define the future of elec­tric planes, we seek to deliv­er the best fly­ing expe­ri­ence and sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the cost of fly­ing, as well as air and noise pol­lu­tion.”

SKYCHARGE is built on Eaton’s pro­pri­etary DC charg­ing tech­nol­o­gy, bring­ing unri­valled con­ver­sion effi­cien­cy ‑high­er than 96 per cent — foot­print and pow­er den­si­ty charg­ing infra­struc­ture to elec­tric planes and eVTOL air­craft.

The charg­er is avail­able either as a fixed ver­sion on a stand or with wheels for mobil­i­ty. The SKYCHARGE mobile ver­sion pow­ers both elec­tric planes via GB/T charg­er plug and cars via either CCS or CHAde­MO plug. This is done with­out instal­la­tion costs because the charg­er can be eas­i­ly con­nect­ed to an exist­ing CEE sock­et.

SKYCHARGE is also the first charg­ing sta­tion for elec­tric air­planes with smart grid func­tion­al­i­ties, being Vehi­cle-to-Grid (V2G) ready.

Eaton and Pip­istrel are mem­bers of SAE International’s AE-7D Air­craft Ener­gy Stor­age and Charg­ing Com­mit­tee, which enables them to par­tic­i­pate active­ly in the set­up of an inter­na­tion­al­ly accept­ed aero­space stan­dard in e‑flight charg­ing.

Pip­istrel announced it would be work­ing with Green Motion in July last year and at the time said both com­pa­nies would cre­ate ‘a world­wide stan­dard in elec­tric plane charg­ing’, which includes cre­at­ing a net­work of charg­ing sta­tions for the Urban Air Mobil­i­ty mar­ket.

The new charg­ing solu­tion would be devel­oped using turnkey tech­nol­o­gy and com­bined with a pho­to­volta­ic sys­tem – as solar tech­nolo­gies can help air­ports receive sub­si­dies.

Green Motion SA oper­ates its own net­work of charg­ing sta­tions under the “evpass” brand, which has become the most exten­sive Swiss net­work and the lead­ing Euro­pean EV charg­ing hub.

The charg­ing sta­tions pro­duced by Green Motion SA are entire­ly designed and engi­neered in Switzer­land. Green Motion’s projects are in coun­tries such as Chi­na, India, Israel and the USA.