Shoreline Aviation partners with BETA Technologies on Massachusetts’ first electric aircraft charging station

Fixed base oper­a­tor Shore­line Avi­a­tion has part­nered with BETA Tech­nolo­gies to install Mass­a­chu­setts’ first-ever pub­lic access elec­tric air­craft charg­ing sta­tion at Marsh­field Munic­i­pal Air­port (GHG).

Ever­source local elec­tric com­pa­ny and the Mass­a­chu­setts Depart­ment of Transportation’s Aero­nau­tics Divi­sion (Mass­DOT Aero­nau­tics) were part­ners in mak­ing this project a real­i­ty.

The BETA charg­ing sta­tions are mul­ti­modal and inter­op­er­a­ble, pro­vid­ing the capa­bil­i­ty to pow­er elec­tric ground and air vehi­cles and include two Lev­el 3 fast-chargers—one inside the fence (air­side), pri­mar­i­ly for use by aircraft—and one in the park­ing lot (car­side). There is also a Lev­el 2 charg­er, for use by pub­lic ground vehi­cles.

“In recent years, we’ve seen near­ly every form of trans­porta­tion go elec­tric, and now that same shift is begin­ning to hap­pen in avi­a­tion in a very real way,” said Blain New­ton, BETA’s Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer.

“It’s excit­ing to be able to fly our all-elec­tric air­craft into Marsh­field Munic­i­pal Air­port, and to charge it at the State’s very first elec­tric air­craft charg­er. We are hon­oured to have the sup­port of part­ners like Shore­line, the Mass­a­chu­setts DOT, and Ever­source, who are help­ing to dri­ve that mis­sion for­ward for their state and beyond.”

Shore­line host­ed an event pow­er­ing up BETA’s ALIA all-elec­tric air­craft, which the com­pa­ny flew from its flight test cen­tre in Platts­burgh, NY, via Syra­cuse. The car­side sta­tion also charged an elec­tric bus.

Shore­line pres­i­dent and CEO Kei­th Dou­glass com­ment­ed: “This charg­ing infra­struc­ture posi­tions Shore­line and Marsh­field Munic­i­pal Air­port to sup­port the elec­tric vehi­cles of today and tomor­row.

“Pilots of elec­tric air­craft, as well as dri­vers of elec­tric vehi­cles, now have a one-stop loca­tion for charg­ing their bat­ter­ies. And for pilots, it is the only pub­lic charg­er in the Bay State.”

BETA has devel­oped two all-elec­tric air­craft that are cur­rent­ly under­go­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion with the FAA, in addi­tion to its mul­ti­modal elec­tric charg­ing net­work, which now hosts 12 active loca­tions, and has over 55 more in devel­op­ment.

Mass­DOT Aero­nau­tics, which over­sees 35 of the Bay State’s pub­lic-use air­ports, and has been a long-stand­ing Marsh­field Munic­i­pal Air­port part­ner, helped facil­i­tate the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion process. It recent­ly received a $2‑million SMART grant from the US Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion to plan a smart micro­grid at Cape Cod Gate­way Air­port in Hyan­nis, Mass­a­chu­setts.

The idea of installing the charg­ing sys­tem at Marsh­field Air­port began when busi­ness devel­op­ment spe­cial­ist Geoff Dou­glass was intro­duced to the BETA team by lead­ers in NASA’s Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty Nation­al Cam­paign.

Dou­glass voiced the idea of employ­ing gen­er­al avi­a­tion air­ports to use Marsh­field as a charg­ing base in Mass­a­chu­setts, but not enough pow­er came down the street, so Ever­source installed the addi­tion­al elec­tric infra­struc­ture, util­is­ing its EV charg­ing rebate pro­gram.

Ever­source VP for elec­tric mobil­i­ty Tilak Sub­rah­man­ian con­clud­ed: “Increas­ing access to elec­tric vehi­cle charg­ing is fun­da­men­tal to com­bat­ing cli­mate change and achiev­ing decar­bon­i­sa­tion goals at the Marsh­field Air­port.”