By Aimée Turner in Geneva
Airbus and Boeing are to link in a ground-breaking collaborative effort to accelerate the development of fuel cell technology for auxiliary power units (APU).
At last week’s Aviation and the Environment summit in Geneva, where the industry came under fire for risking failure in its efforts to co-operate on technological and operational improvements to cut emissions, the airframers admitted that talks on fast-tracking early-stage fuel-cell development had begun.
Boeing Commercial Airplanes director of systems concepts, Timothy Petersen, told delegates: “I think it is possible for the airframe manufacturers to work together to accelerate development before breaking off at some point in the future.”
Airbus senior vice-president of product policy Philippe Jarry said: “It’s our social responsibility and it’s up to us to do it now. What is good is that we are here today and we have to face the situation together.”
Speaking to Flight International, Petersen said Boeing has “entered into very early discussions with Airbus on fuel-cell technology development. However, once it gets to the stage of how we would apply that in an architecture, it then becomes more competitive. We pretty much share a supplier pool and this is one way we can get them to appreciate our requirements.”
Jarry agreed: “This is really only going to apply to the systems suppliers. For us, the airframe manufacturers, it’s more an issue of integration, but what this collaboration will allow us to do is understand the values of fuel-cell technology, the efficiency, the trade-offs, etc.”
He said he could see nothing unusual in Airbus co-operating with its industrial rival, citing the move in 2003 by the US manufacturer’s air traffic management division to forge a co-operation pact with Airbus through the Air Traffic Alliance to establish common air traffic control standards.
Airbus plans to flight test fuel cells developed with GE Motors in the hold of an A320 in the middle of 2007.
Boeing has been researching fuel-cell technology at its centre in Madrid since 2003, and the US manufacturer plans to fly a 440kW fuel cell-powered demonstrator aircraft later this year.
Source: Flight International
