Industry Germany invests 45 million Euro into aviation hydrogen technologies

As innovations and technologies advance in the aviation sector, Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection has announced to fund a new project that will see hydrogen technologies being tested together with the German Aerospace Center DLR. A funding notification for 45.2 million Euro was handed over by the Federal Government’s Coordinator for German Aerospace, Dr. Anna Christmann to the Chairperson of the Executive Board of DLR, Dr.-Ing. Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla.

With the funding, which will have the years 2023 through 2025 covered, DLR is converting a regional aircraft into a flying hydrogen test bed aircraft. As Germany’s aviation industry accelerates its efforts to achieve CO2-neutrality, this latest funding is showing the country’s clear ambitions to further intensify this topic.

First flight tests of the aircraft are set to take place as early as next year, BMWK stated. The aircraft will also be open to industry and research partners – especially to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and Start-Ups.

Dr. Christmann commented: "To achieve the goal of climate neutrality by 2045 in aviation as well, technology development must now pick up speed on a broad front. With the new flying hydrogen test laboratory and its open-source approach, we are embarking on a new path together with DLR and industry. We want to test technologies in flight with as many partners as possible at an early stage of development. At the same time, this is an invitation to other European partners to network and establish collaborations in a similar way at an early stage for the next step - the development of a demonstrator for a medium-range jet."

Dr.-Ing. Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla added: "Against the backdrop of the Paris Climate Agreement, DLR is pursuing the goal of climate-compatible aviation. The path towards this goal also requires disruptive approaches in the development of new propulsion systems, including hybrid-electric concepts based on hydrogen technologies and novel fuels. Future system technologies, fuel cells, fuel systems and their integration will play an important role here. We are therefore particularly pleased to now be able to build a versatile flight test vehicle for these hydrogen technologies of climate-compatible aviation with the new flying test laboratory, which paves the way for a new generation of aircraft […]”