Over £110m investment announced to help guilt free flying take off

Cutting edge new technologies that could enable electric flying taxis and hydrogen powered aircraft to take to the skies will be developed in the UK, thanks to £113m of investment being announced by the Business and Transport Secretaries today (Tuesday 7 February).

Through the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) Programme, Government and industry are jointly backing new exciting zero-carbon technologies to open up a future of guilt-free flying.

From Belfast to Derby, projects will help secure thousands of jobs across the supply chain and hundreds of millions in private investment across the UK, growing the country’s economy and putting us at the forefront of reducing global aviation emissions.

In addition, the Department for Transport is launching a Call for Evidence seeking views from the sector on how to reach the target for airport operations in England to be zero emissions by 2040. The target was set as part of the Government’s Jet Zero Strategy, launched in July last year.

Transport secretary Mark Harper said: “The Jet Zero Council is helping to define the future of flying one that’s more optimistic about the sector’s environmental impact while putting UK innovation at the forefront of international aviation.

“As well as developing the next generation of aircraft, it’s also crucial we make the sector greener on the ground, and the call for evidence we’re launching today will help us gather evidence on how airports can reach zero emissions by 2040.”

Grazia Vittadini, chief technology officer, Rolls-Royce plc, said: “Rolls-Royce welcomes this announcement from the UK Government today. Funding enables us and our partners to deliver exciting projects that are critical to the delivery of the zero carbon element of our net zero road map and will help position the UK as a leader on the pathway to more sustainable flight.”

The investment will be announced at the seventh meeting of the Jet Zero Council, a partnership between Government and industry that’s been set up to fast-track ambitions for zero-emission flight by 2050 through investment and focus on advanced technologies and sustainable aviation fuels, as laid out in the Jet Zero Strategy.

Today’s meeting will take place at Boeing’s London offices, further highlighting the importance of aerospace businesses to the UK’s plans for jobs and growth. In the UK, Boeing employs a highly-skilled workforce of over 3,000 people across 30 key locations and spends nearly £2bn a year in the supply chain on high-value aerospace export parts.

As the Council’s hosts, Boeing will use today’s meeting to demonstrate their new data modelling tool, Cascade, which allows the user to visualise various decarbonisation strategies on the pathway to net zero emissions. Using a variety of datasets, Cascade helps airline operators, policy makers and industry partners make informed decisions on the journey to net-zero by 2050.

The meeting comes after significant developments in the Government’s SAF programme. At the end of last year, five companies were awarded a share of the Department for Transport’s £165m Advanced Fuels Fund, with projects from Teesside to Ellesmere Port receiving funding to build plants that will convert household and industrial waste into jet fuel.

By Mark Adair – Correspondent, Bdaily

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