Hydrogen Challenge launched by UK’s Civil Aviation Authority to leverage its potential as a zero-carbon emission fuel

The UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA) has launched a chal­lenge for the avi­a­tion indus­try to help lever­age the poten­tial of hydro­gen as a zero-car­bon emis­sion avi­a­tion fuel. 

Hydro­gen as an avi­a­tion fuel is at an ear­ly stage of devel­op­ment, while the indus­try does not yet have a com­pre­hen­sive under­stand­ing of the risks to avi­a­tion safe­ty and the right path­way to cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

The CAA will address these issues through its Hydro­gen Chal­lenge, which will use a Reg­u­la­to­ry Sand­box approach to make sure reg­u­la­tion is fit for pur­pose and reduce chal­lenges asso­ci­at­ed with the intro­duc­tion of hydro­gen fuel. The Hydro­gen Chal­lenge runs until Feb­ru­ary 28th, 2025. 

Sophie O’Sullivan, Head of Future Safe­ty & Inno­va­tion at the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty, said: “The project will help facil­i­tate efforts to move towards a net-zero avi­a­tion sec­tor by sup­port­ing the indus­try to explore how fea­si­ble the intro­duc­tion of hydro­gen is and how we can make sure reg­u­la­tion is fit for pur­pose.

“Enabling inno­va­tion while main­tain­ing safe­ty is a key part of our work and this chal­lenge is a clear exam­ple of our col­lab­o­ra­tive approach to shap­ing the future of avi­a­tion.” 

The regulator’s chal­lenge will facil­i­tate col­lab­o­ra­tion with indus­try and acad­e­mia to improve under­stand­ing of hydro­gen-relat­ed risks in avi­a­tion, iden­ti­fy gaps in poli­cies, and pro­pose new rec­om­men­da­tions to devel­op net-zero poli­cies. 

Intro­duc­ing hydro­gen propul­sion is key to achiev­ing the Government’s Jet Zero Strat­e­gy and is also a key deliv­er­able for the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Authority’s sus­tain­abil­i­ty strat­e­gy. 

The Hydro­gen Chal­lenge is fund­ed with near­ly £940,000 from the Reg­u­la­tors’ Pio­neer Fund, which is over­seen by the Depart­ment for Sci­ence, Inno­va­tion, and Tech­nol­o­gy.  

To coin­cide with the launch of the Hydro­gen Chal­lenge, the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty will soon open appli­ca­tions for a new Reg­u­la­to­ry Sand­box to assist appli­cants to run hydro­gen tri­als and max­imise reg­u­la­to­ry readi­ness.  The Hydro­gen Chal­lenge runs until Feb­ru­ary 28th, 2025. 

While Hydro­gen is still years away from become a con­ven­tion­al method of fuel, there are com­pa­nies with­in the AAM mar­ket which are doing excel­lent work to explore its poten­tial. Ear­li­er this year, H2FLY com­plet­ed the world’s first pilot­ed flight of liq­uid hydro­gen-pow­ered elec­tric air­craft.

Oth­er com­pa­nies include Piasec­ki Air­craft Corp., which recent­ly received $37 mil­lion from the US Air Force to devel­op ‘next-gen VTOLs and hydro­gen propul­sion tech­nolo­gies. Luft­Car and ZeroAvia, which recent­ly com­plet­ed a $116 mil­lion Series C Fund­ing Round, are oth­ers.

And ear­li­er this year, eVTOL Insights spoke to Danielle McLean, who is HySky’s Founder and CEO, as part of its pop­u­lar pod­cast series. She paint­ed a fas­ci­nat­ing pic­ture on the cur­rent state of hydro­gen avi­a­tion and any par­tic­u­lar trends she is see­ing.