H2FLY announces joint project to build Hydrogen Aviation Center at Stuttgart Airport

Stuttgart-based devel­op­er of hydro­gen fuel cell sys­tems for air­craft H2FLY and Stuttgart Air­port have launched a project to con­struct a Hydro­gen Avi­a­tion Cen­tre to pro­vide a facil­i­ty where busi­ness­es and sci­en­tif­ic insti­tutes can devel­op zero-emis­sion avi­a­tion.

Sched­uled to open in late 2024, Baden-Würt­tem­berg is sup­port­ing the project with fund­ing from its Min­istry of Trans­port, which will com­prise a hangar with test stands, work­shops and inte­gra­tion for work­sta­tions to devel­op megawatt-scale com­po­nents and sub­sys­tems, along with test­ing of hydro­gen-elec­tric pow­er­trains.

Win­fried Kretschmann, Min­is­ter-Pres­i­dent of Baden-Würt­tem­berg said: “We have been fol­low­ing our own hydro­gen roadmap for two years with the aim to estab­lish our­selves as a lead­ing region in the trans­for­ma­tion of avi­a­tion.

“To achieve this, the air­port is being co-financed by the gov­ern­ment of Baden-Würt­tem­berg to the tune of €5.5 mil­lion, which will enable our region to become not just a cen­tre of R&D for hydro­gen air­craft, but even­tu­al­ly also a man­u­fac­tur­ing cen­tre.”

Dr Anna Christ­mann, Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Coor­di­na­tor of Ger­man Aero­space Pol­i­cy con­tin­ued: “We are work­ing with the entire avi­a­tion indus­try to accel­er­ate tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment through addi­tion­al mea­sures in our Luft­fahrt­forschung­spro­gramm Kli­ma avi­a­tion research pro­gram.”

Win­fried Her­mann, Baden-Württemberg’s Min­is­ter of Trans­port, added: “Wher­ev­er bat­tery-elec­tric solu­tions are not pos­si­ble in the fore­see­able future, we are back­ing new tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ments such as H2FLY, which Stuttgart Air­port intends to advance.

“This entails set­ting up man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ties for renew­ably gen­er­at­ed fuels, such as hydro­gen and syn­thet­ic fuels, and this in turn requires a bind­ing, invest­ment-friend­ly legal frame­work from the EU.”

Pro­fes­sor Josef Kallo, co-founder and CEO of H2FLY con­tin­ued: “With the Hydro­gen Avi­a­tion Cen­tre, H2FLY will cre­ate a focal point for the entire ecosys­tem of emis­sion-free, hydro­gen-elec­tric flight.

“Devel­op­ments and appli­ca­tions in the field of com­mer­cial, hydro­gen-elec­tric avi­a­tion will thus be sig­nif­i­cant­ly advanced and col­lab­o­ra­tion with var­i­ous part­ners will be pooled.”

Wal­ter Schoe­fer, CEO of Flughafen Stuttgart GmbH com­ment­ed: “Avi­a­tion urgent­ly needs new answers to cli­mate change. The Cen­tre of Excel­lence for Hydro­gen in Avi­a­tion com­bines world-class sci­ence with a pio­neer­ing spir­it, and will make impor­tant con­tri­bu­tions to the future of fly­ing.”

Deutsche Air­craft CCO Nico Buch­holz con­clud­ed: “The future starts now and that is why Deutsche Air­craft is work­ing with part­ners like H2FLY on dis­rup­tive tech­nolo­gies for region­al com­mer­cial air­craft.

“We are using the proven Dornier 328 as a fly­ing lab­o­ra­to­ry for test­ing hydro­gen-elec­tric engines and Deutsche Air­craft plans to take the first step towards sus­tain­abil­i­ty with the D328eco sched­uled for cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in Q4/2026 using Power2Liquid jet fuel made from green hydro­gen.”