Are batteries fit for hybrid-electric regional aircraft?

Abstract

Hybrid electric propulsion is likely to play a more prominent role for regional aircraft with 40+ passengers in the future air transport system with reduced climatic impact. In IMOTHEP, two hybrid-electric regional (HER) aircraft concepts, a conservative and a radical, are developed. Energy dense battery technologies are needed to enable hybrid-electric propulsion of regional aircraft. Furthermore, these batteries need to become commercially available within the planned development time of the new aircraft, i.e. until 2030. This paper will discuss general requirements for the HER battery and aims at providing an overview on the most promising industrial approaches for energy dense battery cell technologies – from advanced Li-ion to all-solid-state – with view of their application in air transport and forecasted availability on the market. Furthermore, results will be presented from the study performed in IMOTHEP on hybrid polymer-ceramic all-solid-state battery electrochemistry that combines lab trials with electrochemical numerical simulation.

Study of a Regional Turboprop Aircraft with Electrically Assisted Turboshaft

“…Significant battery performance improvements are required to increase the benefit of HEP on aircraft level. A roadmap for the evolution of battery performance within the next years was developed within the IMOTHEP project and is presented by Kühnelt et al [19].…”

“…The aircraft level effect measured with typical and design mission ramp fu The performance characteristics of the battery and all electrical components of the HEP are summarized in Table 5. The battery's gravimetric energy at cell level was assumed to be 545 Wh/kg based on [19]. The corresponding gravimetric energy at pack level was 405 Wh/kg.…”

“…To gain a thorough understanding of the impact of such an HEP configuration, all required components and disciplines are represented by detailed models and methods. A special focus is placed on the modeling of the electrically assisted turbo generator (see also [17]), the battery (see also [19]) and the hybrid-electric power train.…”