Hydrogen-powered aviation and its reliance on green hydrogen infrastructure – Review and research gaps

TLDR

Green hydrogen aircraft could reduce aviation’s climate impact, yet most studies focus on technology rather than infrastructure cost factors. This review offers a comprehensive synthesis of prior work and proposes a method to evaluate the critical role of hydrogen infrastructure in aviation. The authors model short‑ and medium‑range aircraft converted to hydrogen propulsion and perform a detailed cost analysis comparing aircraft and infrastructure‑related direct operating costs. The viability of hydrogen aviation hinges on low‑cost green liquid hydrogen supply; while total DOC may slightly drop in the best‑case scenario, it can rise 10–70 % for short‑range and 15–102 % for medium‑range aircraft due solely to LH2 costs.

Abstract

Aircraft powered by green hydrogen (H2) are a lever for the aviation sector to reduce the climate impact. Previous research already focused on evaluations of H2 aircraft technology, but analyses on infrastructure related cost factors are rarely undertaken. Therefore, this paper aims to provide a holistic overview of previous efforts and introduces an approach to assess the importance of a H2 infrastructure for aviation. A short- and a medium-range aircraft are modelled and modified for H2 propulsion. Based on these, a detailed cost analysis is used to compare both aircraft and infrastructure related direct operating costs (DOC). Overall, it is shown that the economy of H2 aviation highly depends on the availability of low-cost, green liquid hydrogen (LH2) supply infrastructure. While total DOC might even slightly decrease in a best LH2 cost case, total DOC could also increase between 10 and 70% (short-range) and 15–102% (medium-range) due to LH2 costs alone.