From the ground up

Blueprint Power’s chief technology officer, Nick Schmidt, considers some of the energy monitoring and emissions reducing options open to airports at the beginning of their decarbionisation journeys.

Governments and organisations around the world are grappling with energy and sustainability challenges as they try to lessen their environmental impact and support global climate goals and airports, of course, are not immune to these challenges.

In fact, in 2021, the aviation sector accounted for more than 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions. To put that in context, as one report indicates, if the aviation industry were ranked alongside countries, it would be sixth in the world for emissions.

With these numbers in mind, airports across the globe have made commitments to sustainability goals and are taking forward-thinking steps to achieve them, many being recognised by ACI’s Airport Carbon Accreditation programme.

The examples of airport innovation when it comes to reducing their carbon footprint are numerous, and it is obviously impossible to highlight them all. However, in this article, I would like to highlight the work of several gateways.

Stockholm Arlanda Airport, for example, uses an aquifer as an energy storage unit, and is gradually replacing its vehicle fleet with electric vehicles (EVs).

In the United States, Denver International Airport has the largest existing solar power farm at a commercial airport in the country. Meanwhile, Zurich Airport, Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport and Singapore Changi Airport have all set net-zero or carbon neutrality goals and have made progress on achieving those goals.

Nevertheless, for many airports, knowing where to start the decarbonisation process may be one of the biggest hurdles they face.

Getting started

The first thing that likely comes to mind when we talk about greenhouse gases at an airport are the planes themselves, but they are not the only source of emissions – the buildings and fleets on the ground also play a role.

In fact, in order to truly align with sustainability goals, a dual path approach – addressing emissions on the ground and in the air, separately, may be the most efficient, and most transparent, way to decarbonise.

Additionally, airports need detailed, trustworthy energy consumption data about their energy use volumes, patterns and impacting factors such as whether to adequately baseline current operations, appropriately size new clean energy solutions and measure and report on progress in the future.

This can be accomplished with hardware, such as Blueprint Power’s DIGBOX, installed onsite to ingest and organise data in real time, and energy modelling, giving airports a 360-degree view into energy performance and how to best optimise it.

On the ground solutions

One productive approach to reducing emissions from ground operations is energy usage optimisation. This leverages the data collected onsite to identify consumption volumes and patterns of various energy ‘consumers’, such as building systems, tenants, or fleets.

With this knowledge, airports may be able to change the patterns of how energy is used. They can then reduce consumption, particularly at peak times, and lower emissions and costs. Other on the ground solutions include:

– Building electrification

Replaces inefficient assets, such as converting to LED lighting or switching to electrified heat pumps.

– Adding submetering

Gives a more granular view of how much energy is consumed and by whom, which makes it easier for airport stakeholders to measure and manage.

– Onsite renewable power generation

Provides clean, onsite energy generation, such as through solar power and battery energy storage systems. This could help airports simultaneously reduce emissions, increase energy resiliency, and generate additional cash flow by participating in electrical grid programs that pay for flexible energy capacity.

– Renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs) and renewable energy credits (RECs)

Offsets a portion of emissions by paying for clean energy supply and renewable attributes produced off site.

– Fleet electrification and addition of EV charging stations

Encourages emissions reduction both within the airport and from passenger traffic going to and from the airport.

I like to think of an airport as a ‘mini-city’. Each of these solutions supports decarbonisation of that ecosystem by creating and contributing flexible energy capacity to the local utility and wholesale energy markets, as well as compensating asset owners for providing flexible capacity to the grid – potentially bringing in new economic benefits for airports.

In the air solutions

Solutions in the air include using sustainable aviation fuel, which could reduce CO2 emissions by up to 80% over the lifecycle of the fuel. Another solution is purchasing RECs, which can help meet carbon neutrality goals in the short term, until more permanent clean energy solutions replace them.

Conclusion

Technology and more granular, dynamic energy management can provide impactful solutions for decarbonisation. Many of these begin by using data about an airport’s energy consumption, including real-time, in-building data analytics, to help airport operators harness the surplus energy in their buildings.

Airports that can dynamically adjust energy use in response to grid conditions will be key to addressing energy affordability and equity and reducing emissions. By optimising energy usage and onsite power generation on the ground, and using sustainable aviation fuel in the air, airport administrators can achieve many of their short- and long-haul decarbonisation goals.

Sustainability News

Salvador Bahia Airport, part of the VINCI Airports network, has been awarded ISO 14001 certification by the Brazilian Association of Technical Standards (ABNT) for the excellence of its Environmental Management System (EMS). It also attests that the airport operator is committed to sustainable development, through processes and procedures, and is capable of managing the environmental impact of its activities.

New facilities at the airport include an Effluent Treatment Station (ETE), Solid Waste Center, and 600sqm Biodiversity Center intended for the development of fauna and flora conservation programmes.

Brisbane Airport (BNE) has become the first Australian airport to receive Level 4 ‘Transformation’ status in ACI’s Airport Carbon Accreditation programme. “We are playing an active role in enabling the airport community and aviation sector to decarbonise. Queensland is well placed to be part of the Sustainable Aviation Fuels revolution and design of next generation aircraft,” says Gert-Jan de Graaff, CEO of Brisbane Airport Corporation (BAC).

Fraport has set itself the ambitious new target of aiming to reduce the carbon emissions directly under its control at Frankfurt Airport to 50,000 tonnes by 2030.

The centrepiece of operator Fraport’s decarbonisation efforts will be the future electricity mix used at Frankfurt Airport, which will largely consist of renewable sources from 2026. By then, a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with German energy company EnBW should see around 85% of Fraport’s electricity needs being met by wind energy from the North Sea. Moreover, large photovoltaic systems (PV) at the airport will provide another significant proportion of required energy needs.