Rolls-Royce Chief discusses target for Sustainable Aviation Fuel
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The British engineering giant’s new hybrid-electric propulsion system is being developed for future airliners to fly low-carbon planes. Rolls-Royce has announced it generated more than a megawatt (1 MW) of power in ground tests. The next step is to reach 2.5 MW, with further tests set to continue at the company’s renovated Testbed 108 facility.
The plan to make net-zero propulsion engines and electric flight possible is part of the crucial pillars that are needed to decarbonise the aviation industry
It will see Britain’s emissions slashed as it seeks to become carbon neutral by 2050.
Rolls-Royce CTO Paul Stein told Express.co.uk about the three pillars of sustainable aviation.
He said: “We are making sure all our existing products that we make that we know are going part of our future are net zero compatible.
“Aviation is always as seen a hard to decarbonise sector, and as a company, we believe it is hard to carbonise, but all sectors are hard to decarbonise and there isn’t a magic bullet behind anything and we’re trying to help all sectors as much as we can.
“The first pillar is making our engines more and more efficient, because whatever happens the fewer emissions that come out of the better.
“At Rolls-Royce, one of our big contributions to that is our technology called ultrafan, the next generation of big engines that are designed to have 10 percent fuel efficiency over our previous engines, and very importantly, are designed to be 100 percent compatible with sustainable aviation fuels out of the box.”
Mr Stein said that ultrafans will function as a net zero propulsion system for an aircraft.
Adam Newman, Rolls-Royce’s chief project engineer for aviation futures, said of the new hybrid-electric engine: “When future hybrid-electric aircraft opportunities emerge in the megawatt-and-above class, we want to be as prepared as we can be to offer a ready-made solution. “
But having been successful on the ground, there is still another pillar needed to achieve net zero flight.
Mr Stein explained the importance of boosting the production of sustainable aviation fuels.
Sustainable aviation fuels are fuels that will eventually be net zero.
When a sustainable aviation fuel is burnt in an engine, it takes an atom of carbon from the atmosphere at puts it back into the atmosphere again.
The final pillar, which Mr Stein described as an exciting development, involves pure electric flight as Rolls-Royce looks to create novel ways of propelling aircraft.
He told Express.co.uk: “We’re really excited by pure electric flight.
“Some of our developments with electric flight are so exciting that it’s likely that they will displace some other means of connecting population centres together.
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“You can see how this technology can create a whole new means of people moving around the place and it’s not just for rich people as they are designed to be quite a low cost.”
Rolls-Royce has said that their PG21 generator technology could be used in hybrid-electric propulsion systems or as part of a “more-electric” system for larger aircraft.
For the latest tests, the company combined a generator with the 3,000-volt power electronics system that it has been testing at its facility in Trondheim, Norway.
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