Hitachi Energy and Eve Air Mobility Partner on Electrification Infrastructure for Urban Air Mobility

Hitachi Ener­gy and Eve Air Mobil­i­ty have signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing to col­lab­o­rate on the elec­tri­cal infra­struc­ture required to sup­port urban air mobil­i­ty (UAM) oper­a­tions at scale.

The agree­ment focus­es on grid inte­gra­tion, charg­ing infra­struc­ture, and ver­ti­port enable­ment for Eve’s eVTOL air­craft. The com­pa­nies will assess pow­er avail­abil­i­ty, high-pow­er charg­ing require­ments, and the inte­gra­tion of new ener­gy demand into exist­ing grids. Hitachi Ener­gy plans to adapt its Grid-eMo­tion charg­ing infra­struc­ture for eVTOL oper­a­tions.

The part­ner­ship will also explore repur­pos­ing air­craft bat­ter­ies for ener­gy stor­age after their avi­a­tion life­cy­cle, aim­ing to improve over­all sys­tem sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Joint busi­ness mod­el­ing and coor­di­nat­ed cus­tomer engage­ment are part of the agree­ment to sup­port glob­al UAM infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment.

Eve Air Mobil­i­ty, backed by Embraer, is devel­op­ing an eVTOL air­craft with cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and com­mer­cial oper­a­tions tar­get­ed for 2028. The com­pa­ny holds let­ters of intent for approx­i­mate­ly 2,700 eVTOLs from cus­tomers world­wide.

Hitachi Ener­gy brings exper­tise in grid inte­gra­tion, pow­er elec­tron­ics, and charg­ing sys­tems. The com­pa­ny has invest­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly in elec­tri­fi­ca­tion and grid mod­ern­iza­tion, includ­ing more than $9 bil­lion in R&D, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tions.

Johann Bor­dais, CEO of Eve Air Mobil­i­ty, stat­ed that the col­lab­o­ra­tion sup­ports efforts to enable safe, effi­cient, and sus­tain­able eVTOL oper­a­tions. Mar­co Berar­di, Head of Grid & Pow­er Qual­i­ty Solu­tions and Ser­vice at Hitachi Ener­gy, high­light­ed the impor­tance of cross-indus­try part­ner­ships for the ener­gy tran­si­tion.

This arrange­ment is meant to tack­le the grow­ing need for robust elec­tri­cal infra­struc­ture as advanced air mobil­i­ty moves clos­er to com­mer­cial­iza­tion. Ver­ti­ports require reli­able pow­er con­nec­tions and fast-charg­ing capa­bil­i­ties to sup­port high-fre­quen­cy oper­a­tions. Bat­tery sec­ond-life appli­ca­tions could help address sus­tain­abil­i­ty con­cerns and reduce costs.

The part­ner­ship com­bines air­craft devel­op­ment exper­tise with ener­gy sys­tems knowl­edge, address­ing one of the key chal­lenges in scal­ing UAM net­works. Infra­struc­ture readi­ness, par­tic­u­lar­ly pow­er sup­ply and charg­ing, has been iden­ti­fied as a crit­i­cal fac­tor for com­mer­cial via­bil­i­ty of eVTOL ser­vices.

Eve and Hitachi Ener­gy plan to work on prac­ti­cal path­ways for ver­ti­port enable­ment, with ini­tial focus on tech­ni­cal require­ments and inte­gra­tion strate­gies. The col­lab­o­ra­tion is expect­ed to sup­port broad­er indus­try efforts to estab­lish the nec­es­sary ground infra­struc­ture for urban air mobil­i­ty.

Thomas Sleightholm

Thomas is a con­tent writer for eVTOL Insights, cov­er­ing all aspects of the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. Got a sto­ry for him? Please send an email to editorial@evtolinsights.com

See Full Bio