Electric-powered air traffic network with integrated aircraft-battery modelling

Paper in proceeding, 2025

In this work, we present an electric-powered air traffic network model based on historical domestic travel demands within Sweden. The hybrid electric aircraft used in the network are designed by retrofitting an existing regional propeller-driven aircraft, which has a passenger capacity of 30 seats. The key advancement of the model is the integrated aircraft and battery modelling capability. This could enable trade-off analysis of electric aircraft designs with different battery technologies and performance characteristics under realistic air traffic conditions. The results presented here include a general assessment of emissions reduction through the adoption of hybrid electric aircraft in the context of Swedish domestic air traffic, and route-specific battery degradation results. While the analysis indicates that regional benefits are anticipated with the advancement of battery technology by 2035, aggressive and radical battery innovations are required to achieve overall environmental benefits. Focusing on a battery pack composed of Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt cells, the evaluation of battery degradation poses high challenges to pure electric operations, limits the operational flexibility of hybrid electric aircraft across different routes, and incurs high costs due to frequent battery replacements required to meet mission demands and reserve energy requirements.