BAE Systems and Heart Aerospace to collaborate on battery for electric aeroplane

BAE Sys­tems and Swedish elec­tric aero­plane mak­er Heart Aero­space have announced a col­lab­o­ra­tion to define the bat­tery sys­tem for Heart’s ES-30 region­al elec­tric aero­plane.

The bat­tery will be the ‘first-of-its-kind’ to be inte­grat­ed into an elec­tric con­ven­tion­al take­off and land­ing (eCTOL) region­al air­craft, allow­ing it to oper­ate with zero emis­sions and low noise.

“Our indus­try-lead­ing solu­tion builds on decades of exper­tise deliv­er­ing tech­nolo­gies and sys­tems need­ed to progress sus­tain­able trans­porta­tion,” said Ehtisham Sid­diqui, vice pres­i­dent and gen­er­al man­ag­er of Con­trols and Avion­ics Solu­tions at BAE Sys­tems. “We are delight­ed to col­lab­o­rate with Heart Aero­space on the inno­v­a­tive bat­tery sys­tem for its elec­tric aero­plane.”

The pro­gram will lever­age more than 25 years of BAE Sys­tems’ exper­tise in elec­tri­fy­ing large, heavy-duty indus­tri­al vehi­cles. Today, the com­pa­ny has over 15,000 pow­er and propul­sion sys­tems oper­at­ing in ser­vice across the globe. Work on the pro­gram will be con­duct­ed at the company’s state-of-the-art facil­i­ty in Endi­cott, New York.

“BAE Sys­tems’ exten­sive expe­ri­ence in devel­op­ing bat­ter­ies for heavy-duty ground appli­ca­tions, and their expe­ri­ence in devel­op­ing safe­ty crit­i­cal con­trol sys­tems for aero­space, make them an ide­al part­ner in this impor­tant next step for the ES-30 and for the avi­a­tion indus­try,” said Sofia Graflund, chief oper­at­ing offi­cer at Heart Aero­space. “We look for­ward to decar­boniz­ing air trav­el togeth­er.”

The ES-30 aero­plane will be pow­ered by four elec­tric motors, and has an all-elec­tric range of 200 kilo­me­tres, an extend­ed reserve hybrid range of 400 kilo­me­tres with 30 pas­sen­gers and abil­i­ty to fly up to 800 kilo­me­tres with 25 pas­sen­gers.

The ES-30 will also have a cost-effec­tive and scal­able upgrade path as future bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy matures. The bat­tery upgrade roadmap allows for increased usable ener­gy at the same weight, result­ing in longer flight dura­tions and expand­ed route options.

Heart Aero­space has a total of 230 orders and 100 options for the ES-30, along with let­ters of intent for an addi­tion­al 108 aero­planes.

In Feb­ru­ary, Heart Aero­space was select­ed as long-term part­ner for Air New Zealand’s Mis­sion Next Gen Air­craft part­ner­ship for the replace­ment of the airline’s Q300 domes­tic fleet from 2030 along­side Air­bus, ATR, Embraer, and Uni­ver­sal Hydro­gen.

Heart Aero­space select­ed for Air New Zealand’s Mis­sion Next Gen Air­craft