In Occitania, Safran is advancing its pawns in the wake of the policy pursued by the regional council. The engine manufacturer, which already employs 3,300 people in this region, intends to ramp up its subsidiary Safran Power Units, which currently employs 500 people in Toulouse and plans to have almost 600 employees by the end of 2023.
The Pink City teams are partly driven by the commercial export success of the Rafale (for which Safran Power Units notably supplies the starting system and the auxiliary power unit), but not only. Since 2019, the industrial site installed Chemin du Pont de Rupé in Toulouse has been designated internally as a fuel cell center of excellence.
While the Dallas site (United States) is dedicated to American military activities in which Safran is engaged and the San Diego (United States) business aviation unit, the Toulouse site concentrates several vital forces which make a strategic site. “We have the design office, the test benches, the repair/maintenance units and the production and assembly workshops, all on nearly 30,000 m2.“, list Frédéric Verdeaux, the marketing manager of Safran Power Units.
Safran employs more than 3,000 people in the Occitanie region (Credits: Rémi Benoit).
“Between 2026 and 2030”
This fast-growing subsidiary is aiming for a turnover of 150 million euros in 2020 and injects approximately 12% of this turnover into R&D each year. Enough to satisfy the 200 engineers in this section, who have been working for several years now on the development of this fuel cell in Toulouse.
Thus, the socialist president of the regional council of Occitanie, Carole Delga, went on site, Thursday, July 7, to see for herself the progress of the research work and to learn about the needs of the sector in this assignment.
For the record, the elected official announced a little over a month ago a “Green Plane Plan” of 100 million euros, with the ambition in particular of accelerating research around low-carbon planes. In the ranks of the regional council, as of Safran, it is not hidden that public subsidies could land in the coffers of the subsidiary of the engine manufacturer in the more or less near future.
“For small planes, we are aiming for entry into commercial service between 2026 and 2030 and for larger ones, we are on a horizon of 2035”, projects Jean-Baptiste Jollys, the head of the fuel cell group at Safran Power Units. “The green plane will fly in less than five years, it will no longer be a demonstrator”, adds Carole Delga.
Jean-Baptiste Jollys is the director of the group in charge of carrying out the hydrogen fuel cell project of Safran Power Units (Credits: Rémi Benoit).
Of the 500 people currently employed by the subsidiary, around 30 are dedicated to the development of the hydrogen fuel cell. But its officials expect a 40% increase in the workforce by 2025 largely thanks to this product.
Association with an innovative company
To promote its launch on the market at the desired time, Safran has just injected 3.5 million pounds sterling last March (out of a total fundraising of 10 million alongside the HydrogenOne Capital Growth fund) in the company Cranfield Aerospace Solutions. The latter wants to market, with Safran, a nine-seater aircraft equipped with an electric propulsion system powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. It should also be noted that Safran is working with Airbus for a hydrogen-powered A380 demonstrator for 2027.
The trials of these various projects should in part be carried out on the former Francazal military base, south of Toulouse, which has now become a reception area for innovative mobility companies. The regional council and the metropolis of Toulouse have also joined forces to bring out of the ground a technocampus dedicated to hydrogen applied to mobility. “Safran is a very driving force in this future technocampus“, does not hide Carole Delga, which will house researchers, laboratories and companies. The place must be made available from 2024.
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How Safran wants to take part in the “green plane”, dear to Carole Delga