Airlines, airports, official authorities and OEMs that are part of the Airport Compatibility of Alternative Aviation Fuels Task Force (ACAAF TF) attended a demonstration, held in Toulouse, France. Supported by the Airport Council International World (ACI), this group is driving the implementation of new technology in airports.
The demonstration marks significant progress when it comes to the near-term application of green hydrogen at airports.
The demonstration on the ATR-72 showed the loading and unloading of Universal Hydrogen’s modular hydrogen capsules into the aircraft, simulating a turnaround procedure, and took place on the operational F50 apron of Toulouse Blagnac Airport. A strong collaboration between the Toulouse Blagnac Airport, its safety and security partners, as well as the ground handling company, Groupe 3S, in charge of the ground operations, enabled the demonstration to be executed smoothly and successfully.
Additionally, on the heels of announcing its joint development agreement with JBT AeroTech, Universal Hydrogen revealed the fuelling logistics for its H2AmpCart, showing the feasibility of recharging electric GSE (eGSEs) airside with hydrogen. This solution eliminates the need for expensive airport infrastructure investments. The hydrogen modules for the H2AmpCart have a discrete form-factor to those utilised in the aircraft and are being built and tested to support the year-end availability of the fully-functional demonstrator H2AmpCart. By bringing the hydrogen and charger directly to the eGSEs on the airport aprons, the costly process of driving long distances to a central charging station is removed. Universal Hydrogen’s H2AmpCart hydrogen modules are filled away from the airport with green hydrogen, and transferred to the airport landside leveraging existing intermodal freight infrastructure. From there, the modules are loaded onto a trailer for safe and efficient transportation to any location airside of the airport, facilitating opportunistic charging of eGSEs between operations. The trailer is then connected to the H2AmpCart with Universal Hydrogen’s purge-less quick connect system. This approach optimises GSE operations and minimises downtime.
“Many airports around the world utilise hydrogen on a daily basis already, but in most cases those are for landside operations, such as shuttle buses. Today we took a step closer to hydrogen becoming a reality in the day to day operations at airports worldwide as we completed a hydrogen fuelling turnaround of our ATR-72 aircraft and presented the fuelling logistics of our new H2AmpCart,” said Arnaud Namer, COO, Universal Hydrogen.