Decarbonizing aviation is a critical goal for mitigating climate change, as the sector contributes significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions. Hybrid electric aircraft (HEA) represent a promising step towards reducing the environmental impact of aviation. The paper presents a review of life cycle assessment analysis of hybrid electric aircraft designs as emerging technologies. The literature review is complemented by a presentation of the technologies developed within the HECATE (Hybrid Electric Regional Aircraft Distribution Technologies) EU project. Results of HECATE prove that for the HEA platforms, requirement for higher voltage and higher power distribution components is essential to reduce the environmental load. All the literature findings show that hybrid-electric aircraft configurations can reduce the carbon intensity per RPK (revenue passenger kilometer) from 49%-57% in the conservative scenario to 82%-88% in the best scenario when compared to fossil-fueled aircraft. The environmental impact of HEA could be further reduced by 7% if electricity for batteries charging is produced from renewable sources and battery has longer lifetime. LCA analysis shows that the main contributors to the environmental load produced by HEA are aircraft airframes and batteries, producing on average 15-40 kg CO₂ eq/h.

In the frame of the final analysis of the HERFUSE activities a life cycle assessment (LCA) has been planned to support the performance evaluation of the new Clean Aviation (CA) architectural concepts. The HERFUSE project is focused on designing innovative fuselage and empennages suitable for the future Hybrid-Electric Regional Aircraft (HER) that will contribute to the overall target to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. HERFUSE will study the challenges in fuselage and empennage layout, material, components, manufacturing and assembly derived from the integration of the relevant fuselage systems for HER as defined in the strategic research and innovation agenda SRIA for a Hybrid-Electric Regional Aircraft and in HER-01 topic.

This article presents a comprehensive analysis of the primary electrical power distribution system in hybrid-electric aircraft, with particular emphasis on its environmental performance assessed through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). High-resolution Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data were developed in collaboration with industry partners and refined to reflect current production standards. The results indicate that printed circuit boards (PCBs), magnets, precious metals (gold and silver), and copper are the primary contributors to environmental impact, with PCBs alone accounting for over 50% of material-related emissions. Although precious metals constitute only 0.014% of the product’s mass, they account for nearly 9% of total emissions due to the energy-intensive nature of their mining and refining processes. Additionally, manufacturing stages involving thermal treatments—such as surface coating of iron cores at 850 °C for 14 h—significantly increase energy consumption and associated emissions. The study concludes with recommendations for reducing the carbon footprint of future aircraft power systems through improved material efficiency, process optimization, and supply chain sustainability.