Vertical Aerospace lands £1.75M UK grant for eVTOL charging systems
What's the deal? Vertical Aerospace has secured up to £1.75 million in UK government grant funding to develop high-power charging and thermal management systems for electric aircraft. The money comes from the Department for Transport and anchors the wider ECLiPSE project, a £3.4 million initiative.
Why now? As the global eVTOL industry nears commercial deployment, fast and reliable charging is becoming a bottleneck. Frequent flights require rapid energy supply to make electric aviation economically feasible.
What's the endgame? ECLiPSE — Electrified Charging & Liquid-cooling Provision for Support of E-flights — pairs high-power liquid charging with dynamic thermal regulation. The aim is to cut infrastructure costs, streamline site integration, and reduce turnaround times between electric flights.
Vertical leads the project alongside the University of Bath and consultancy InnCat Ltd. The work was launched at the Farnborough International Airshow, where Vertical conducted public eVTOL test flights.
What could go wrong? The £1.75 million figure is a ceiling, contingent on final grant agreements. Vertical is also in advanced talks over a separate £10 million grant to anchor its full-scale UK manufacturing site — funding that has yet to be finalised.
"To unlock commercial electric aviation, the industry needs the infrastructure that allows aircraft to recharge quickly, operate efficiently and scale economically," said chief executive officer Stuart Simpson.
The grant builds on sustained UK government backing for Vertical through the Aerospace Technology InstituteDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and the Future Flight Challenge. If the broader industrialisation package closes, total direct government support would reach roughly £48 million.
The signal: The grant ranks around the 91st percentile for UK deep tech grant rounds, underscoring how governments are treating charging infrastructure — not just aircraft — as strategic. The resulting cooling and charging technologies are also expected to cross over into heavy-duty transport and electric maritime.
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