Aircraft manufacturer Airbus, industrial gases company Air Liquide and airport owner Vinci Airports have joined forces to create a hydrogen distribution hub at Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport in France.
In the first phase, due in 2023, the partners will open a hydrogen gas distribution station at the airport to supply ground vehicles such as airside buses, trucks, handling equipment and heavy goods vehicles. This phase will test the airport’s facilities and dynamics as a hydrogen hub.
In the second phase the partners will add infrastructure for liquid hydrogen to refuel hydrogen aeroplanes. The second phase will be implemented from 2023–2030. Airbus is one of several companies working to develop a hydrogen-fuelled aeroplane. The company expects ZEROe to be the world’s first zero-emission commercial aircraft, operational in 2035. It will run on liquid hydrogen, both burned in modified gas turbine engines and fed into hydrogen fuel cells to produce electrical energy, creating a hybrid-electric propulsion system.
The third phase, from 2030 onwards, will see the installation of facilities to produce liquid hydrogen onsite, as well as for storage and mass distribution. Airbus, Air Liquide and Vinci will also study the possibility of installing similar facilities throughout Vinci’s European airport network.
The partners share an ambition to create zero emission air travel and are working together to promote hydrogen use at airports and build a European network to support hydrogen-fuelled aeroplanes. The airport at Lyon is Vinci’s centre of excellence for innovation, and the partners have selected it for their pilot project. The project will have three main phases.
“This partnership illustrates the partners’ shared commitment to decarbonising air travel and is a major step forward for the development of hydrogen across the airport ecosystem. It relies on the know-how of Airbus in commercial aircraft, on Air Liquide’s expertise in mastering the entire hydrogen value chain (production, liquefaction, storage and distribution) and on the global reach of Vinci Airports, the leading private airport operator with 45 airports in 12 countries, which will help create the desired network,” the partners said in a joint statement.
For more information visit www.vinci-airports.com/en
