Why LAX, LAS and LHR should invest in Liquid Hydrogen
Author: Dr James Jeffs, Principal Technology Analyst at IDTechEx
IDTechEx predicts the hydrogen airplane market will grow to US$28.4 billion, but only with strategic airport investment.
IDTechEx’s new report, “Sustainable Future Aviation 2025-2045: Trends, Technologies, Forecasts”, finds the hydrogen airplane market will be worth US$28.4 billion in 2045. The largest part of this will be coming from hydrogen-powered narrow-body commercial airliners. However, this can only happen with strategic infrastructure investment at the right airports.
Key airports and routes that could suit hydrogen-powered air travel in the US. Source: IDTechEx
Hydrogen is a promising option for the future of aviation. Unlike batteries, it has enormous gravimetric energy density, allowing the plane to carry plenty of energy without becoming too heavy. The limitation of hydrogen is its volumetric energy density – the space it takes up. Because hydrogen is light, it occupies far more space than jet fuel for the same amount of energy. At room temperature and pressure, a hydrogen tank would need to be more than 3,000 times the size of a jet fuel tank to hold the same energy.
Compressing hydrogen helps to get more energy into a smaller volume. Most companies looking at compressed hydrogen are considering 700 bar. Pressurizing hydrogen to 700 bar increases its density by a factor of 470, meaning the tank needs to be just over 7 times bigger for the same energy, but also that anybody looking to make use of hydrogen will need to invest in 700 bar hydrogen refueling infrastructure.
Liquid hydrogen (LH2) is even more dense. At 71g/L, it still weighs nearly ten times less than jet fuel for the same volume but now contains ~25% of the energy. So now, if a plane could be refueled with liquid hydrogen and got similar efficiency out of the engines, it could expect to get around 25% of the range. For something like an Airbus A320, or Boeing 737max, this would mean around 1,500km of range. This might not sound like much, but a surprising amount of flights are less than 1,500km.
IDTechEx’s report, “Sustainable Future Aviation 2025-2045: Trends, Technologies, Forecasts”, found that around 60% of all flights in the US (domestic and international) are less than 1,500km.
The range of a hydrogen plane can be improved further by switching to a fuel-cell electric propulsion system rather than a hydrogen-combustion turbofan. Doing this would extend the range of the hydrogen plane by approximately 50%, taking the 1,500km range up to 2,000+km for a narrow body. For a long-range wide-body like the Airbus A350, or Boeing 777, it could be possible to fly over 4,000km on hydrogen power. To put that in perspective, the longest flight in the 48 contiguous states is Seattle to Miami, at just under 4,400km.
Although highly promising, there is still a long way to go for hydrogen commercial flights to take off. There will still be years of testing, development, and certification before the first passenger-carrying flights come online. But along with the aircraft development, there will need to be infrastructure investment made at airports to handle liquid hydrogen. As such, it will take some key airports investing in the hydrogen infrastructure to kick-start the hydrogen-air travel market.
How the air travel market share grows as more airports are added to the network. Source: IDTechEx
In 2023 airplanes from Los Angeles (LAX) to Las Vegas (LAS) transported nearly 3.5 million passengers, making it one of the busiest routes in the US. Additionally, it is only 380km, making it easy to complete with hydrogen power, and possibly with battery electric. Furthermore, these airports are some of the key hubs in the US, along with Atlanta, Denver, Dallas Fort Worth, and Chicago O’Hare. The network created between these six airports covered 2.2% of the US’s domestic air travel demand in 2023. Adding just a few more of the most popular airports in the US to this list and creating a network of 21 airports would cover nearly 25% of the US’s domestic air travel demand in 2023.
New York (JFK) to London (LHR) is one of the busiest routes in the world, with approximately 3.8 million passengers flying this route in 2023. At 5,500km, it is perhaps outside the realms of possibility for hydrogen power. However, LHR would be one of the starting points for creating a hydrogen-powered network in Europe, along with other important hubs like Schiphol and Frankfurt.
Hydrogen-powered flight will not be easy. There are still many technical challenges around certification, hydrogen fuel cells, longevity, making motors powerful enough for airplanes, hydrogen storage, and more. However, with the right airports investing in LH2, refueling technologies will be a key step in getting the upcoming industry off the ground.
IDTechEx’s new report, “Sustainable Future Aviation 2025-2045: Trends, Technologies, Forecasts”, provides a detailed analysis of hydrogen and electric flight technologies across commercial airplanes, business jets, and general aviation. Its forecasts show how the industry will grow in the number of planes sold, revenue from sales in US$, battery demand for electric planes in GWh, and motor demand for planes in GW.
To find out more about this new IDTechEx report, including downloadable sample pages, please visit www.IDTechEx.com/SustAviation.
For the full portfolio of electric vehicle market research available from IDTechEx, please see www.IDTechEx.com/Research/EV.
Upcoming free-to-attend webinar
The Future of Air Travel: Electric, Hydrogen or SAF?
Dr James Jeffs, Principal Technology Analyst at IDTechEx and author of this article, will be presenting a free-to-attend webinar on the topic on Wednesday 9 October 2024 – The Future of Air Travel: Electric, Hydrogen or SAF?
In this webinar, IDTechEx explains the technical limitations of building electric and hydrogen commercial airliners, highlighting issues around battery weight and low gravimetric energy density, hydrogen's volumetric energy density, the maximum power of electric motors, and more. Through this webinar, IDTechEx reveals what the market opportunities are for electric planes, hydrogen planes, and why SAF will be needed for as long as we want to travel long distances by air.
Key topics covered by this webinar include:
- Weight limits for planes and how much battery can be installed
- Potential ranges that can be achieved with battery power
- Volume limitations for hydrogen
- Potentiation ranges that can be achieved with hydrogen power
- How the air travel market is distributed by flight distance
We will be holding exactly the same webinar three times in one day. Please click here to check timings and register for your specific time zone.
If you are unable to make the date, please register anyway to receive the links to the on-demand recording (available for a limited time) and webinar slides as soon as they are available.
