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GE's dedicated team, leading technology, and global reach and capabilities help the world work more efficiently, reliably, and safely.
Access the latest press releases, media contacts, and press tools.
Discover how our people & technology are solving global issues, improving lives, and changing industries.
Voices is a network for GE’s US supporters interested in the company’s impact in their communities and in issues that impact the company.
Explore the latest stories, news, downloads, and press tools.
Get the latest GE stock data.
Tune in or catch up on GE’s latest investor events and reports.
Read the latest GE financial news releases and stories.
Explore GE’s recent and historic SEC filings.
Stay up to date with the latest resources for the planned spin-offs.
Access GE’s recent and historic Annual Reports and accompanying materials.
Read GE’s 2022 Proxy Statement, vote your shares and access the 2022 Annual Meeting.
Learn about governance at GE, including the latest Proxy Statement and information about the GE Board of Directors.
Get in touch and stay informed.
Learn how we’re delivering on our priorities.
Accomplished leaders building GE’s legacy.
Explore a timeline of GE technologies that have spurred transformation across the world.
At GE, we are committed to building a more diverse workforce and a more inclusive workplace.
Our energy expertise spans from renewable wind energy to emission-reducing natural gas, as well as physical and digital solutions to modernize the grid connecting it all.
A culture of integrity, compliance, safety, and respect for human rights, while reducing our environmental footprint.
Answers to popular and relevant inquiries.
Contact information for general inquiries and feedback.
We’re continuing to do all we can to support our customers and employees during this unprecedented time. We’re deeply proud of GE employees around the world rising to the challenge.
Our technology, global network, and exceptional team is fueled by a mission—building a world that works.
Find yourself a world changing job.
Learn more about our culture, businesses, and life at GE.
By embracing diverse teams and perspectives, we are better equipped to build a world that works.
At GE, we rise to the challenge of building a world that works. Explore a career with us.
Offering a suite of products to help unlock the full potential of additive manufacturing.
GE Aerospace is a world-leading provider of jet engines, components and systems for commercial and military aircraft with a global service network to support these offerings.
We connect capital to infrastructure and deliver innovative financial solutions that help make the world work better.
Transforming how industry solves its toughest challenges by bringing simplicity, speed and scale to digital transformation.
We build intelligent devices, data analytics, applications and services to enable healthcare practitioners to deliver care more efficiently and with better outcomes.
Creating the energy technologies of the future and improving the power networks that we depend on today.
Together with our customers, we’re proving that no one is ever limited to only affordable, reliable, or sustainable energy.
GE's innovation engine where ideas become reality to create a better world and deliver differentiated tech across the company's industrial portfolio.
Commercializing GE’s technology and IP to accelerate growth and achieve market differentiation.
GE's dedicated team, leading technology, and global reach and capabilities help the world work more efficiently, reliably, and safely.
GE Aerospace and other manufacturers have been working for years to find ways to help decarbonize the airline industry. It’s quite a challenge, of course. Jet fuel produces a lot of carbon emissions, yet it’s a powerful form of energy that has dominated aviation since the Wright brothers went airborne in 1903.
But one promising path is the development of hybrid electric engines, which combine the energy of jet fuel with fewer emissions and less maintenance and noise. It’s a technology that is compatible with sustainable aviation fuel and new engine technologies that are also intended to lower carbon emissions. Last year, NASA and GE disclosed a plan to develop a megawatt-class integrated hybrid electric powertrain for commercial aviation, and earlier this year Boeing joined that project. This week, in the latest example of the hybrid electric initiative, GE Aerospace’s Avio Aero business announced it will lead a demonstration project, partly funded by the Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking and the European Commission, to advance hybrid electric propulsion with hydrogen fuel cells.
“We need to recognize that there will be a number of different solutions to this problem, not just a single solution across the entire market,” says Luca Bedon, head of advanced technologies at Avio Aero. Over the next four years, research efforts by the 21-member consortium will lead to tests of a ground-mounted rig that combines an electric motor driven by hydrogen fuel cells supplementing the power of a traditional gas turbine engine.
Hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, produces no CO2 emissions when it burns. But the challenges of using it as an aviation fuel are daunting. For example, even when stored in liquid form, it would take up a lot of space. While GE and partners are working on solutions to that problem, “the volume is playing against you,” Bedon says, which means you would need to reduce passenger capacity.
But hydrogen does have one big thing going for it: It has very high specific energy, meaning it produces a lot of power for its mass. According to the Department of Energy, raw hydrogen has three times the specific energy of gasoline. And squeezing hydrogen into fuel cells has even more potential. This may explain why it has found some early success in trucking, which needs more power than a passenger car. In aviation, hydrogen fuel cells show promise in regional and smaller aircraft in future generations.
“The reason why we’re investing in this technology is because the fuel cells have the potential to store significantly more energy than what you can store in a battery,” says Bedon.
For now, Avio Aero and its partners have a goal of developing a demonstrator that reduces emissions using a parallel hybrid electric system that starts to pare back the amount of jet fuel needed to complete short-haul routes. “By combining electric power and thermal power, you will obtain an extremely efficient propulsion system that can reduce emissions, thus enabling a faster path towards net zero,” Bedon says.
As he points out, the team has to consider the emissions produced in making hydrogen. Hydrogen fuel cells are ultra-clean in their output. But hydrogen can be made in several different ways, each producing differing carbon emission counts, for example by using natural gas or using electricity created by everything from coal to nuclear power to wind and solar.
The project, which goes by the name AMBER, will involve Germany-based H2FLY, which is developing the fuel cells for the undertaking. Avio Aero will modify its existing Catalyst turboprop engine for the project, for integration with the hybrid system.
Electric Truck The building blocks toward the eventual success of this technology are falling into place. The goal is to make hydrogen from clean sources and use energy-dense hydrogen fuel cells to drive an electric motor. If projects like this one pay off, it may mean the beginning of a long goodbye to petroleum-powered flight.