{"id":4562,"date":"2023-06-19T16:00:38","date_gmt":"2023-06-19T15:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/?p=4562"},"modified":"2023-12-20T17:41:44","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T17:41:44","slug":"tecnams-p-volt-all-electric-passenger-aircraft-project-stalls-due-to-battery-limitations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/?p=4562","title":{"rendered":"Tecnam\u2019s P-Volt all-electric passenger aircraft project stalls due to battery limitations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A project with a proposed entry into service by 2026 of an all-electric passenger aircraft on domestic routes in Norway has been shelved after extensive research by the plane\u2019s developer, Tecnam, concluded a short battery life would make it commercially unviable. The Italian airframer had partnered with Rolls-Royce to develop a zero-emission, high-utilisation capability platform called P-Volt, with the partnership extended to include Norwegian operator Wider\u00f8e in early 2021 The country\u2019s biggest regional airline has a large domestic network where flight distances are less than 275 km. However, after a three-year study covering the entire life-cycle of an all-electric aircraft, Tecnam has decided, at least for now, that even under optimistic projections, operators would need to replace the entire battery storage unit after only a few hundred flights, with a dramatic increase in direct operating costs due to the reserves for battery replacement prices.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cSince the beginning of the P-Volt development, Tecnam\u2019s focus has been to provide operators with the ability to fly an all-electric passenger aircraft profitably, efficiently and sustainably in terms of operating costs, emissions, performance, turnaround and time to market,\u201d said a company statement<\/a>. \u201cAt present, Tecnam believes that these can only be achieved by extremely aggressive speculation on uncertain technology developments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe proliferation of aircraft with \u2018new\u2019 batteries would lead to unrealistic mission profiles that would quickly degrade after a few weeks of operation, making the all-electric passenger aircraft a mere \u2018green transition flagship\u2019 rather than a real player in the decarbonisation of aviation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the company\u2019s most optimistic future scenario of slow charge cycles and the possible limitation of the maximum charge level per cycle, the real storage capacity would fall below 170Wh\/kg, whereas by comparison, jet fuel has an energy density of 12,000Wh\/kg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tecnam said the programme was being postponed rather than cancelled and is \u201cready to bring the P-Volt back into the type certification arena as soon as technology evolution allows.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fabio Russo, the company\u2019s Chief R&D Officer, added: \u201cWe hope that new technologies will make businesses viable sooner rather than later and we have real confidence in our partners\u2019 ability to bring highly valuable products to the zero-emission powertrain and energy storage arena.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The P-Volt is based on the 11-seat Tecnam P2012 Traveller aircraft and seen as ideal for short take-off and landing, as well as for Wider\u00f8e\u2019s<\/a> routes along the north and west coast of Norway. The airline\u2019s shortest flight durations are between seven and 15 minutes. In March, it announced the three-year Wider\u00f8e Zero project, which, with backing from Norway\u2019s Research Council, will explore possible operating concepts for both a nine-seater electric aircraft and an eVTOL aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country has an ambition of having the first electrified aircraft in ordinary domestic scheduled flights by 2030 and an 80% emissions reduction from domestic flights by 2040.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image: Tecnam’s P-Volt all-electric aircraft in Wider\u00f8e livery<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A project with a proposed entry into service by 2026 of an all-electric passenger aircraft…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":741,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[181,632,78],"tags":[125,177,176],"class_list":["post-4562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-electric","category-new-energies","category-nordics","tag-rolls-royce","tag-tecnam","tag-wideroe"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Rolls-Royce-Wideroe-Tecnam-P-Volt.jpg",1095,730,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Rolls-Royce-Wideroe-Tecnam-P-Volt-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Rolls-Royce-Wideroe-Tecnam-P-Volt-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Rolls-Royce-Wideroe-Tecnam-P-Volt-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Rolls-Royce-Wideroe-Tecnam-P-Volt-1024x683.jpg",640,427,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Rolls-Royce-Wideroe-Tecnam-P-Volt.jpg",1095,730,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Rolls-Royce-Wideroe-Tecnam-P-Volt.jpg",1095,730,false],"newsever-slider-full":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Rolls-Royce-Wideroe-Tecnam-P-Volt.jpg",1095,730,false],"newsever-featured":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Rolls-Royce-Wideroe-Tecnam-P-Volt-1024x683.jpg",1024,683,true],"newsever-medium":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Rolls-Royce-Wideroe-Tecnam-P-Volt-720x475.jpg",720,475,true],"mailchimp":["https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Rolls-Royce-Wideroe-Tecnam-P-Volt.jpg",560,373,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Christopher Surgenor","author_link":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Electric<\/a> New Energies<\/a> Nordics<\/a>","tag_info":"Nordics","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4562"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4565,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4562\/revisions\/4565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenairnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}