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HyPoint cuts ribbon to new state-of-the-art facility in the UK and plans to advance zero-emissions hydrogen aviation

HyPoint has opened the doors to its new R&D and pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty in the UK, which aims at accel­er­at­ing hydro­gen inno­va­tion in the UK.

The new flag­ship loca­tion at Dis­cov­ery Park in Sand­wich, Kent, was unveiled last Wednes­day (Feb­ru­ary 9th), and will house the company’s research labs and pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties. The site will work close­ly with its Sil­i­con Val­ley head­quar­ters in Men­lo Park, Cal­i­for­nia. 

Over the next two years, HyPoint will invest more than £11 mil­lion and grow head­count to over 50 employ­ees, a scheme that was recog­nised by the UK Gov­ern­ment at the Green Invest­ment Sum­mit in Octo­ber 2021. By the end of 2025, the com­pa­ny expects to employ more than 100 work­ers and have 100 megawatts of onsite plant capac­i­ty.

Dr. Alex Iva­nenko, HyPoint’s founder and chief exec­u­tive, said: “With its mas­sive tech­ni­cal and aca­d­e­m­ic tal­ent pool, a glob­al­ly-recog­nised ecosys­tem of hydro­gen man­u­fac­tur­ers, and strong trans­port decar­bon­i­sa­tion tar­gets, the UK is well-posi­tioned to become a glob­al leader in the hydro­gen econ­o­my.

“We are thrilled to bring our team and tech­nol­o­gy to the world-class Dis­cov­ery Park sci­ence and inno­va­tion hub, which is already home to indus­try giants such as Pfiz­er. This loca­tion will enable us to accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment and deliv­ery of our hydro­gen fuel cell tech­nol­o­gy to avi­a­tion and aero­nau­ti­cal com­pa­nies in the UK and around the world.

“Our work is crit­i­cal to unlock­ing faster decar­bon­i­sa­tion of avi­a­tion and urban air mobil­i­ty, whilst also cre­at­ing eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty and jobs across the coun­try to sup­port the long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the UK’s avi­a­tion indus­try.”

HyPoint’s NASA award-win­ning 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. By util­is­ing spe­cialised high-tem­per­a­ture mem­branes and an indus­try-first air-cool­ing sys­tem, HyPoint is able to deliv­er unprece­dent­ed per­for­mance while reduc­ing total sys­tem weight by more than 60 per cent.

Test­ing has shown that HyPoint’s cur­rent sys­tem deliv­ers 2,000 W/kg of spe­cif­ic pow­er, more than triple the pow­er-to-weight ratio of tra­di­tion­al liq­uid-cooled hydro­gen fuel cells sys­tems, and 1,500 Wh/kg of ener­gy den­si­ty, more than sev­en times the ener­gy den­si­ty of cur­rent bat­tery sys­tems.

In Octo­ber, HyPoint announced a part­ner­ship with BASF, the glob­al chem­i­cal giant, to devel­op a cut­ting-edge hydro­gen fuel cell mem­brane that will sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase HyPoint’s sys­tem lev­el pow­er as well as increase its dura­bil­i­ty and oper­at­ing tem­per­a­ture.

The new sys­tem, avail­able in 2025, will be able to deliv­er more than 3,000 W/kg of spe­cif­ic pow­er — at least a 50 per cent increase over the cur­rent sys­tem — which is enough to sat­is­fy the require­ments of nar­row-body air­craft. 

In August 2021, HyPoint announced a part­ner­ship with Piasec­ki Air­craft to co-devel­op hydro­gen fuel cell sys­tems for eVTOL appli­ca­tions includ­ing its PA-890 Com­pound eVTOL Heli­copter, which is expect­ed to become the first hydro­gen-pow­ered manned heli­copter when it is unveiled in 2025.

John Piasec­ki, Pres­i­dent and CEO of Piasec­ki, added: “HyPoint is well-posi­tioned to be the first com­pa­ny to bring to mar­ket hydro­gen fuel cells that are unique­ly designed for air­craft and aero­nau­ti­cal use. We are excit­ed for the HyPoint team and look for­ward to co-devel­op­ing full-scale sys­tems for zero-emis­sion eVTOL flight.”

Avi­a­tion pro­duced 2.4 per cent of glob­al CO2 emis­sions in 2018, which as a coun­try would rank it 6th in the world between Japan and Ger­many and rep­re­sents a greater share of glob­al CO2 emis­sions than the 136 low­est-pol­lut­ing coun­tries com­bined.

Non-CO2 effects, such as warm­ing induced by air­craft con­trails and oth­er pol­lu­tants, bring avi­a­tion’s com­bined total con­tri­bu­tion to glob­al warm­ing to approx­i­mate­ly five per cent. Because fos­sil fuel air­planes sold today are expect­ed to be in oper­a­tion for decades — and air trans­porta­tion is expect­ed to con­tin­u­al­ly increase — aviation’s con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change is expect­ed to grow rapid­ly com­pared with oth­er sec­tors that are already decar­bon­is­ing.

BloombergNEF projects that if noth­ing is done, annu­al avi­a­tion emis­sions will increase to 2.05 Gt in 2050 in a base­line sce­nario, a 92 per cent increase from 2019.

In 2020, ZeroAvia became the first com­pa­ny to suc­cess­ful­ly com­plete a hydro­gen-elec­tric pas­sen­ger air­craft flight. It has raised $115 mil­lion from investors that include Unit­ed Air­lines, Alas­ka Air­lines, Amazon’s Cli­mate Pledge Fund, Break­through Ener­gy Ven­tures (Bill Gates’ fund), Shell, and oth­ers.

Val Mif­takhov, founder and CEO of ZeroAvia, who was also present at the cer­e­mo­ny, said: “ZeroAvia and HyPoint are aligned in our vision to ful­ly decar­bonise the avi­a­tion indus­try and sup­plant fos­sil fuel pow­er­trains with zero-emis­sion hydro­gen-elec­tric pow­er­trains.

“ZeroAvia is doing most of its R&D activ­i­ty for our 10–20 seat engines in the UK and it’s great to have a lead­ing fuel cell devel­op­er such as HyPoint near­by. We con­tin­ue to work close­ly with HyPoint to devel­op hydro­gen fuel cells for future ZeroAvia pow­er plants, and are look­ing for­ward to even clos­er col­lab­o­ra­tion going for­ward.” 

May­er Schreiber, CEO of Dis­cov­ery Park, added: “Dis­cov­ery Park has always sought to be home to com­pa­nies tack­ling the biggest issues fac­ing our glob­al com­mu­ni­ty. Har­ness­ing hydro­gen for avi­a­tion offers the poten­tial to trans­form our econ­o­my and at the same time, pro­tect our envi­ron­ment by dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduc­ing CO2 emis­sions.

“HyPoint’s mul­ti-mil­lion pound arrival clear­ly demon­strates their con­fi­dence in Dis­cov­ery Park as a home for world-lead­ing indus­tri­al biotech­nol­o­gy deliv­ered through glob­al part­ner­ship and inno­va­tion.”

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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