A Methodology for the Comparative Analysis of Hybrid Electric and All-Electric Power Systems for Urban Air Mobility

Teresa Donateo and Antonio Ficarella
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Teresa Donateo: Department of Engineering for Innovation, The University of Salento, via per Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Antonio Ficarella: Department of Engineering for Innovation, The University of Salento, via per Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 2, 1-23

Abstract: The present investigation addresses the topic of Urban Air Mobility with particular reference to the air-taxi service with electrified power systems. A new and detailed methodology is proposed for the simplified design and energy analysis of conventional, hybrid-electric, and full-electric power systems for this application. The original contributions to the scientific literature on UAM are the detailed modeling approach, the evaluation of CO 2 emissions with a Well-to-Wing approach as a function of the electricity Emission Intensity factor, and the comparison with road vehicles performing the same route in different driving conditions. The comparison demonstrates the advantages of a full electric air-taxi with today’s technology versus a hybrid-electric road taxi, especially in cases involving low emission intensity and unfavorable driving conditions (congested traffic, aggressive driving style, and high circuity factor values). In the case of 2035 technology, the comparison with a referenced fully electric road vehicle is detrimental to the air taxi but the values of Well-to-Wheel/Wing CO 2 with the expected Emission Intensity of 90 g/kWe for the European Union are still quite low (67 g/km). The investigation also quantifies the negative effect of battery aging on the consumption of the air taxi and on the number of consecutive flights that can be performed without fully charging the battery.

Keywords: urban air mobility; WTW emissions; hybrid electric vehicles; battery aging (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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