Mission-Level Assessment of Environmental Control System Electrification on Hybrid-Electric Turboprop Regional Aircraft

Electrified Aircraft Propulsion (EAP) is gaining significant attention as a potential solution for reducing fuel consumption and emissions. Although electrifying the propulsion system has been a primary focus in past studies, secondary power subsystems such as the environmental control system (ECS) also consume a significant amount of energy, yet their impacts on aircraft mission performance have not been investigated with EAP. This paper presents a parametric modeling approach for the ECS and its electrification on a previously established regional turboprop EAP vehicle model. Semi-empirical and physics-based approaches are used to determine the component weights, drag penalty, and secondary power offtake of ECS. Both the enginedriven generators and the main battery in the EAP system are considered as candidate power source for the electrified ECS. A retrofit study at the vehicle level predicts that electrified ECS architectures bring a 0.4% increase in the empty weight, up to 3% fuel saving at 180 nmi, and a small range reduction of up to 5 nmi.