H55 selects Safran to supply the electric propulsion unit for the Bristell B23 Energic Aircraft

Safran Elec­tri­cal & Pow­er and H55 have signed an agree­ment to inte­grate the Safran ENGINeUS elec­tric motor into the H55 elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem, pow­er­ing the ful­ly elec­tric Bris­tell B23 Ener­gic air­craft.

This col­lab­o­ra­tion aims to deliv­er cer­ti­fied elec­tric propul­sion solu­tions for gen­er­al avi­a­tion, tar­get­ing CS-23 / Part 23 Lev­el 1 and 2 air­craft. It com­bines Safran’s EASA cer­ti­fied ENGINeUS elec­tric motor tech­nol­o­gy with H55’s ener­gy stor­age and propul­sion inte­gra­tion capa­bil­i­ties.

Agnès Pronost-Gilles, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent & Gen­er­al Man­ag­er, Pow­er Divi­sion, Safran Elec­tri­cal & Pow­er, said: “We are pleased that H55 has select­ed ENGINeUS for its propul­sion sys­tem on the Bris­tell B23 Ener­gic. As the only cer­ti­fied elec­tric motor in the avi­a­tion mar­ket, ENGINeUS con­tin­ues to set the indus­try stan­dard, offer­ing an out­stand­ing pow­er-to-weight ratio and proven, reli­able per­for­mance while ful­ly address­ing mar­ket require­ments.

“ENGINeUS enables the devel­op­ment of both all-elec­tric and hybrid air­craft, mak­ing it a key asset for intro­duc­ing ful­ly cer­ti­fied and inte­grat­ed solu­tions to the mar­ket.”

With cer­ti­fi­ca­tion remain­ing the main bar­ri­er to entry in elec­tric avi­a­tion, both com­pa­nies have recent­ly achieved key EASA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion mile­stones. Build­ing on this com­bined exper­tise, the part­ner­ship will accel­er­ate the avail­abil­i­ty of cer­ti­fied elec­tric propul­sion solu­tions for next-gen­er­a­tion 2–6 seat air­craft.

The Bris­tell B23 Ener­gic pro­gram serves as the ini­tial cer­ti­fi­ca­tion plat­form for gen­er­al avi­a­tion, tar­get­ing the rapid­ly expand­ing elec­tric pilot train­ing mar­ket. This mar­ket is dri­ven by increas­ing demand for low­er oper­at­ing costs and zero-emis­sion oper­a­tions.

Safran Elec­tri­cal & Pow­er will sup­port both the pro­to­type and ser­i­al pro­duc­tion phas­es, begin­ning in 2027, and will also deliv­er ded­i­cat­ed in-ser­vice sup­port.

Mar­tin Bris­tela, CEO and Co-Founder, Bris­tell — BRM AERO, added: “Flight schools from Europe to North Amer­i­ca already build their fleets around the Bris­tell B23, a plat­form cer­ti­fied under both EASA and FAA and avail­able across sev­er­al engine con­fig­u­ra­tions.

“Adding cer­ti­fied elec­tric propul­sion from H55 and Safran to this foun­da­tion means oper­a­tors can tran­si­tion to zero-emis­sion train­ing with min­i­mal dis­rup­tion. Same cock­pit, same sup­port net­work, new pow­er­train. That is a prac­ti­cal path to elec­tric flight.”

H55 is a Swiss-based com­pa­ny spe­cial­iz­ing in cer­ti­fied elec­tric propul­sion and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion-grade ener­gy stor­age sys­tems for avi­a­tion. The com­pa­ny enables elec­tric avi­a­tion to scale by trans­form­ing com­mer­cial lithi­um cells into avi­a­tion-safe Ener­gy Stor­age Sys­tems that reg­u­la­tors approve, insur­ers under­write, and OEMs can deploy repeat­ed­ly as a cer­ti­fied propul­sion plat­form across air­craft pro­grams.

This is achieved through inde­pen­dent cell char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, rig­or­ous incom­ing screen­ing, redun­dant safe­ty archi­tec­tures, and reg­u­la­tor-aligned test­ing designed around worst-case fail­ure sce­nar­ios.

Found­ed as the tech­no­log­i­cal lega­cy of the Solar Impulse pro­gram, H55 builds on more than two decades of hands-on elec­tric avi­a­tion expe­ri­ence. The com­pa­ny has designed, built, and flown mul­ti­ple elec­tric air­craft and has accu­mu­lat­ed more than 2,000 hours of ful­ly elec­tric flight with zero bat­tery-relat­ed incidents—providing the oper­a­tional depth required to exe­cute cer­ti­fi­ca­tion-grade pro­grams, not mere­ly com­ply with them.

Rob Solomon, CEO for H55, said: “This part­ner­ship brings togeth­er the two com­pa­nies that have done the hard­est work in cer­ti­fied elec­tric avi­a­tion for light air­craft — eight years of H55 build­ing the only bat­tery archi­tec­ture to com­plete an EASA-wit­nessed mod­ule test cam­paign, and Safran deliv­er­ing the ENGINeUS motor fam­i­ly as the bench­mark for cer­ti­fied elec­tric propul­sion in the light gen­er­al avi­a­tion mar­ket.

“When you com­bine the stan­dard-bear­er for cer­ti­fied ener­gy stor­age with the stan­dard-bear­er for cer­ti­fied elec­tric motors, you give OEMs some­thing they haven’t had: a com­plete, cer­ti­fi­able elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem they can build an air­craft around — and that com­press­es the path to cer­ti­fied air­craft by years, not months.”