GE Aerospace successfully demonstrates narrowbody hybrid electric engine system in ground test

GE Aero­space has announced a new test mile­stone for hybrid elec­tric avi­a­tion, suc­cess­ful­ly demon­strat­ing pow­er trans­fer, extrac­tion and injec­tion in a high-bypass com­mer­cial tur­bo­fan engine.

Ground test­ing of a mod­i­fied Pass­port engine was com­plet­ed in 2025 at Pee­bles Test Oper­a­tion, as part of NASA’s Tur­bo­fan Engine Pow­er Extrac­tion Demon­stra­tion project. Tech­ni­cal teams advanced under­stand­ing of the hybrid elec­tric engine’s sys­tem inte­gra­tion and con­trols, beyond just stand­alone com­po­nents.

Arjan Hege­man, vice pres­i­dent of future of flight for GE Aero­space, said: “Hybrid elec­tric propul­sion is cen­tral to how GE Aero­space is redefin­ing the future of flight. Our lat­est mile­stone suc­cess­ful­ly demon­strat­ed a nar­row­body hybrid elec­tric engine archi­tec­ture that doesn’t require ener­gy stor­age to oper­ate.

“It’s a crit­i­cal step to mak­ing hybrid elec­tric flight a real­i­ty for com­mer­cial avi­a­tion with tech­nolo­gies that meet cus­tomer needs for greater effi­cien­cy, dura­bil­i­ty, and range.”

Hybrid elec­tric expe­ri­ence

GE Aero­space is devel­op­ing a nar­row­body hybrid elec­tric archi­tec­ture that embeds elec­tric motor/generators in a gas tur­bine engine to sup­ple­ment pow­er dur­ing dif­fer­ent phas­es of oper­a­tion. The design opti­mizes per­for­mance and cre­ates a sys­tem that can work with or with­out ener­gy stor­age like bat­ter­ies. 

Test­ing exceed­ed NASA’s tech­ni­cal per­for­mance bench­marks. NASA based these mea­sures on indus­try input about engine capa­bil­i­ties that would pro­vide mean­ing­ful fuel cost sav­ings for U.S. avi­a­tion while also meet­ing the pow­er require­ments of future air­craft.

GE Aero­space has achieved mul­ti­ple hybrid elec­tric mile­stones over the last decade, includ­ing a 2016 ground test of an elec­tric motor-dri­ven pro­peller. In 2022, GE Aero­space com­plet­ed the world’s first test of a megawatt-class and mul­ti-kilo­volt (kV) hybrid elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem in alti­tude con­di­tions up to 45,000 feet that sim­u­late sin­gle-aisle com­mer­cial flight. 

A new strate­gic part­ner­ship and equi­ty invest­ment announced in 2025 with BETA tech­nolo­gies plans to devel­op a hybrid elec­tric tur­bo­gen­er­a­tor for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty appli­ca­tions.

RISE pro­gram test­ing

The Pow­er Extrac­tion Demon­stra­tion is one of sev­er­al efforts GE Aero­space has under­way to mature tech­nolo­gies for more elec­tric air­craft engines through the CFM Inter­na­tion­al RISE* pro­gram. 

Unveiled in 2021, the RISE pro­gram is one of the avi­a­tion industry’s most com­pre­hen­sive tech­nol­o­gy demon­stra­tors with more than 350 tests and more than 3,000 endurance cycles com­plet­ed to date, includ­ing tests on advanced engine archi­tec­tures like Open Fan, com­pact core and hybrid elec­tric sys­tems. The RISE pro­gram pri­or­i­tizes safe­ty, dura­bil­i­ty and effi­cien­cy, tar­get­ing more than 20 per cent bet­ter fuel burn com­pared to com­mer­cial engines in ser­vice today.

CFM RISE pro­gram tech­nolo­gies are matur­ing toward ground and flight tests this decade with work under­way on air­craft and engine inte­gra­tion in col­lab­o­ra­tion with part­ners.

* Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Inno­va­tion for Sus­tain­able Engines (RISE) is a tech­nol­o­gy demon­stra­tion pro­gram of CFM Inter­na­tion­al, a 50–50 joint com­pa­ny between GE Aero­space and Safran Air­craft Engines. It is not a prod­uct offered for com­mer­cial sale.