Fresh from completing the first test flight of a conventional light aircraft powered using a battery late last year, green aviation group APAME has revealed that it plans to have a commercial version of the zero emission plane, available within two years.

The Electra - a wood and fabric single seater plane - flew for 48 minutes and covered 50km on its inaugural flight around the French Alps, making it the first plane to use battery power in a fixed wing standard aircraft.

Anne Lavrand, president of the French APAME group, said the organisation would now begin work on developing a small battery powered plane that it hoped would be commercially available within two years.

She argued that batteries could provide a viable alternative to conventional engines for light recreational aircraft. "Batteries always used to be too heavy to use in aircraft, but new high capacity lithium ion batteries solve that problem," she said. "We managed to get almost an hour's flight from just a 47kg battery and that ratio is only going to improve as the batteries get better."

The electric motor and batteries are expected to cost between €10,000 and €15,000, but fuel costs would stand at around €1 per hour of flying, compared to €60 for petrol-driven aircraft.

Despite the breakthrough, electric powered passenger aircraft remain a distant prospect, but Lavrand insisted that improvements in hydrogen fuel cell technology could one day result in low emission passenger flights.

"Because of the weight problem battery powered flight can only be applied to small aircraft, but I am convinced there is potential to use hydrogen fuel cells in larger planes," she said. "It will take some years, but it will be possible. "