Synhelion, Pilatus launch strategic partnership to scale solar fuels

Synhelion announced June 4 that it has entered into a strategic cooperation with Pilatus Aircraft Ltd. with the aim of accelerating the scaling of solar fuels for aviation.

The Swiss aircraft manufacturer wants to use Synhelion’s solar fuels for its own flight operations and also offer them to its customers in the medium term.

Pilatus Aircraft, founded in 1939, is the biggest aircraft manufacturer in Switzerland.

To date, Pilatus has developed, built and delivered more than 4,400 airplanes worldwide.

In the future, the company would like to use Synhelion’s solar fuel not only for its own aircraft fleet, but Pilatus’ customers will also have the opportunity to actively defossilize their air travel with sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

As part of the partnership, Pilatus also became a shareholder of Synhelion in April.

This underpins the aircraft manufacturer’s strong long-term commitment to the sustainable transformation of air travel.

“Pilatus has been committed to sustainability and energy efficiency for many years, for example in our production processes and new buildings,” said Hansueli Loosli, the chairman of the Pilatus board of directors. “We are firmly convinced that SAF will be an integral part of aviation’s future and we would like to make a further essential contribution.”

Markus Bucher, CEO of Pilatus, added, “We are convinced by the technology of solar fuels—it is the best way to defossilize air traffic as quickly as possible. We are delighted to be taking on a pioneering role together with Synhelion, making an important contribution to sustainability in aviation.”

Philipp Furler, co-CEO and co-founder of Synhelion, said, “We are extremely proud to have Pilatus, a leading manufacturer of turboprop and jet aircraft, as a partner and shareholder. Over the next few years, we will work together with full commitment to scale our solar fuels worldwide.”

Synhelion and Pilatus will communicate the details of future fuel deliveries in the coming months.

The declared common goal is to roll out sustainable solar fuels to Pilatus’ entire customer fleet within 10 years.

Synhelion is currently industrializing its technology for the production of sustainable, synthetic fuels.

In Jülich, Germany, the company is currently building what it said is the world’s first industrial demonstration plant for solar fuel, project “Dawn.”

Synhelion will commission the plant this year and produce the first small quantities of fuel for demonstration purposes.