Pipistrel & Green Motion cooperate on charging e-planes

The aircraft manufacturer Pipistrel and the charging station supplier Green Motion want to jointly design the future charging of electric aircraft in line with EASA guidelines.

The stated aim is to develop a “universal, future-oriented, environmentally friendly and ready-to-use charging technology for electric aircraft”. Pipistrel and Green Motion plan to ensure that the charging technology complies with the approvals of EASA, the European Union’s aviation safety authority. EASA had recently granted Pipistrel its first type certification for an electric aircraft. The Slovenian small aircraft manufacturer and the Swiss charging company, therefore, expect the market for electric aircraft to grow soon.

According to the announcement, Pipistrel and Green Motion now want to bring their engineering teams together. The companies do not specify a time schedule or the scope of the joint development, such as how many people will work on the project, in the communication.

But the two partners do not have to start from scratch. Green Motion already offers the ‘Flight XT’, a charger for aeroplanes, and the system is already in use at two airports in Switzerland, according to the company’s announcement.

Together, Pipistrel and Green Motion now want to tackle some of the problems of the still small market for electric aircraft. For example, airports and airfields are still equipped very differently. In the vision of the two companies, the new solution should create a worldwide standard for charging aircraft. The system is to be “further developed based on the latest market technologies” and thus be future-proof. It should also be possible to combine the charging stations with photovoltaic and stationary storage systems.

Since there are no corresponding solutions on the market for the development of the electric aeroplane, Pipistrel had to develop and manufacture everything itself, including the chargers, according to CEO Ivo Boscarol. “However, to ensure a significant change towards a cleaner environment, the widespread use of electric aircraft is essential and we need to spread the network of chargers in airports around the world,” Boscarol said. “This cannot be achieved by Pipistrel alone, but with a competent and respected partner like Green Motion, it will become a reality”. François Randin, founder and CEO of Green Motion, added: “We believe that the market for electric aircraft has similar potential to the market for electric cars that we entered over 11 years ago”.

greenmotion.ch (in German)