Recipient organisationHighlands and Islands Transport PartnershipSource-published name: The Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership
Funding£10.2M
PeriodJun 2022 — Mar 2025
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
At a commercial airport in Orkney, engineers are already flying hybrid-electric planes and testing autonomous cargo drones over the Scottish islands. The Sustainable Aviation Test Environment (SATE) addresses a practical gap: no UK airport currently has the infrastructure, airspace permissions, or regulatory approval to trial low-carbon aircraft on real passenger and cargo routes. Without a dedicated test site, promising technologies—hydrogen propulsion, electric flight, autonomous delivery—remain grounded in labs or on paper. If SATE succeeds, the Orkney Islands will become a working blueprint for regional net-zero aviation. The project aims to fly the UK’s first hydrogen-powered regional aircraft, establish a drone delivery network connecting remote islands, and run an international demonstration flight to Norway. These are not theoretical models; they are scheduled trials with real cargo, NHS supplies, and airline passengers. The wider impact is on infrastructure that most people never see: airport refuelling systems for green hydrogen, regulatory sandboxes for uncrewed aircraft, and the supply chains that keep island communities connected. If the model works here, it could be replicated across the Highlands and Islands—and beyond.
View original technical description
Based at Kirkwall Airport in the Orkney Islands, the Sustainable Aviation Test Environment (SATE) is the UK's first low-carbon aviation test centre embedded at a commercial airport. SATE brings together an international consortium of industry partners, public sector bodies and academia who will work with a range of regional businesses and stakeholders to apply state-of-the-art aviation technology to deliver targeted economic growth. SATE's overarching objectives include: * Demonstrating the next generation of air services * Ensuring airports operations are ready to support sustainable aviation requirements * Improving regional connectivity * Supporting Scottish Government's ambition for a Highlands and Islands Net Zero Aviation region by 2040 SATE has already established itself at the forefront of future aviation. Recent successes include Ampaire demonstrating the first hybrid-electric flights in Scotland and Windracers trialling autonomous flights for delivering Royal Mail cargo between Kirkwall and North Ronaldsay. These practical outcomes have raised the profile of SATE, putting the project on the global stage. SATE will now expand to create the UK Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Regional Aviation Systems, enabling pre-commercial demonstrations of novel aviation technologies with proven use cases to commercialise clean innovation in a real-world environment. Use cases will include: * Scheduled airline routes * Offshore energy services * National Health Service activities * Island / remote region deliveries * Environmental survey and inspection Implementation of these will require advances in technology, regulation, and policy. These are reflected in the cross-cutting activities which include: * Establishing a dedicated test environment airspace * Matchmaking technology to community and business needs * Accelerating technology innovation * Mapping out the future Highlands and Islands aviation system Kirkwall Airport is one of eleven airports operated by HIAL and an ideal test environment location due to the variety of operated routes (including short hops to inter-island airfields operated by Orkney Islands Council). The wider project team includes leading technology developers ZeroAvia, Windracers and FlareBright. EMEC brings expertise in green-hydrogen refuelling infrastructure, and HITRANS will lead on connectivity into the wider transport system. The socio-economic impact of a new regional-aviation system will be supported by UHI, Connected Places Catapult (CPC) and Aracadis. This project will also stimulate inward investment and supply chain growth which is a key responsibility for Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE). Project highlights will include working with the CAA to approve a regional sandbox airspace, establishment of a UAV hub-and-spoke delivery network, a first hydrogen-propelled regional-aircraft flight and an international demonstration flight to Norway.
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