UK to Invest UKP113 million in New Technologies, Vertical Aerospace “Major Beneficiary”

The UK Gov­ern­ment and Indus­try are invest­ing UKP113 mil­lion in hydro­gen and all-elec­tric flight tech­nolo­gies to “unlock guilt-free flight and sup­port green jobs” via an Aero­space Tech­nol­o­gy Insti­tute (ATI) Pro­gram, reports a press release. eVTOLS are high on the agen­da with Bris­tol-based, Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, lead­ing an enhanced bat­tery devel­op­ment (high-end and light­weight) project with a UKP30.8 mil­lion invest­ment.

Stephen Fitz­patrick, CEO and Founder of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, com­ment­ed, “At Ver­ti­cal, we are pio­neer­ing the most advanced elec­tric air­craft in the world, right here in the UK. We are absolute­ly delight­ed to co-invest with the gov­ern­ment in devel­op­ing the light­weight, high-per­for­mance, and safe bat­ter­ies we need to make zero car­bon flight a real­i­ty. “

He con­tin­ued, “In the race to Net Zero, the ATI Pro­gramme is deliv­er­ing a huge oppor­tu­ni­ty for the gov­ern­ment and indus­try to come togeth­er to cre­ate world-lead­ing, British tech­nolo­gies and build British exper­tise.”

Stephen Fitz­patrick (cred­it: Ver­ti­cal Aero­space)

Anoth­er finan­cial invest­ment is for “devel­op­ing the build­ing blocks of a liq­uid hydro­gen com­bust­ing jet engine, which would enable flight with­out car­bon emis­sions.” This enter­prise is led by Rolls-Royce.

The release states, “From Belfast to Der­by, these suc­cess­ful projects will help secure thou­sands of jobs across the sup­ply chain and hun­dreds of mil­lions in pri­vate invest­ment across the UK, grow­ing the country’s econ­o­my and putting us at the fore­front of reduc­ing glob­al avi­a­tion emis­sions.”

In addi­tion, the Depart­ment for Trans­port is launch­ing a ‘Call for Evi­dence’ seek­ing views from the sec­tor on how to reach the tar­get for air­port oper­a­tions in Eng­land to be zero emis­sions by 2040. The tar­get was set as part of the government’s Jet Zero Strat­e­gy, launched in July last year.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/2040-zero-emissions-airport-target

Busi­ness Sec­re­tary Grant Shapps remarked, “As the whole world moves to green­er forms of avi­a­tion, there is a mas­sive oppor­tu­ni­ty for the UK’s aero­space indus­try to secure clean, green jobs and growth for decades to come and and we are back­ing the world-lead­ing UK firms whose skills and inge­nu­ity are going to make that dream a real­i­ty.”

The invest­ment was announced at the sev­enth meet­ing of the Jet Zero Coun­cil (Feb­ru­ary 7th), a part­ner­ship between gov­ern­ment and indus­try that’s been set up to fast-track ambi­tions for zero-emis­sion flight by 2050 through invest­ment and focus on advanced tech­nolo­gies and sus­tain­able avi­a­tion fuels, as laid out in the Jet Zero Strat­e­gy.

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/jet-zero-strategy-our-approach-for-achieving-net-zero-aviation-by-2050

Emma Gilthor­pe, CEO of the Jet Zero Coun­cil and Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer at Heathrow Air­port, said, “The launch of the Jet Zero Strat­e­gy last year was a key mile­stone on the path to decar­bon­is­ing avi­a­tion, and it’s fan­tas­tic to see the progress that has been made since then.”

She con­tin­ued, “This invest­ment, and the launch of the Call For Evi­dence on how air­ports in Eng­land can reach zero emis­sions by 2040, are anoth­er vital part of that jour­ney and I look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to col­lab­o­rate with our part­ners in indus­try and gov­ern­ment to define the future of fly­ing.”

Emma Gilthor­pe (cred­it: Finnbarr Webster/Alamy Live News)

The Feb­ru­ary 7th meet­ing was also an oppor­tu­ni­ty to high­light progress and assess oppor­tu­ni­ties on the jour­ney to net zero includ­ing a demon­stra­tion of the inno­v­a­tive data mod­el­ling tool called Cas­cade pro­duced by Boe­ing.

The release explains, “This pro­gram allows the user to visu­alise var­i­ous decar­bon­i­sa­tion strate­gies on the path­way to net zero emis­sions. Using a vari­ety of datasets, Cas­cade helps air­line oper­a­tors, pol­i­cy mak­ers and indus­try part­ners make informed deci­sions on the jour­ney to net-zero by 2050.”

It con­tin­ues, “The tool com­putes full life-cycle account­ing of total cli­mate effects using sce­nar­ios for the five core strate­gies: renew­able ener­gy, air­plane fleet renew­al, future air­craft and advanced tech­nolo­gies, oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy improve­ments and mar­ket-based mea­sures and demon­strates that Sus­tain­able Avi­a­tion Fuel (SAF) is required to meet the 2050 com­mit­ment while con­tin­u­ing to invest in hydro­gen, elec­tric and advanced tech­nolo­gies.”

The meet­ing comes after sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ments in the Government’s SAF pro­gram. At the end of last year, five com­pa­nies were award­ed a share of the Depart­ment for Transport’s UKP165 mil­lion Advanced Fuels Fund, with projects from Teesside to Ellesmere Port receiv­ing fund­ing to build plants that will con­vert house­hold and indus­tri­al waste into jet fuel.

Vir­gin Atlantic will also receive gov­ern­ment fund­ing to com­plete the first ever net zero transat­lantic flight on 100 per­cent SAF. The trip from Lon­don to New York will take off from the UK dur­ing this year.

Back­ground

The ATI Pro­gram co-funds indus­try-led inno­va­tion in civ­il aero­space tech­nol­o­gy and man­u­fac­tur­ing, sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment of next gen­er­a­tion zero car­bon and ultra-effi­cient air­craft, while grow­ing the UK’s com­pet­i­tive posi­tion in civ­il aero­space. It is open to UK busi­ness­es of any size to under­take air­craft tech­nol­o­gy and man­u­fac­tur­ing research, aligned to the UK Aero­space Tech­nol­o­gy Strat­e­gy.

It also runs two fund­ing streams tar­get­ed at deliv­er­ing tai­lored sup­port and men­tor­ing to SMEs. The Spend­ing Review 2021 allo­cat­ed a record UKP685 mil­lion of gov­ern­ment fund­ing to the ATI Pro­gram over three years, an increase of more than 50 per­cent. Grant win­ners are cho­sen by the Depart­ment for Busi­ness, Ener­gy and Indus­tri­al Strat­e­gy, Inno­vate UK and the ATI.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://vertical-aerospace.com

(Top image: Ver­ti­cal Aero­space)