The challenge of building and operating greener airports

Trideep Barau, ABB’s global segment manager for infrastructure, considers the challenge of building and operating greener airports.

Over the next decade, hundreds of new airports are planned for the global south, while airports in the global north continue to expand capacity, which poses the question, how are we going to do this and reduce carbon emissions as an industry?

The answer lies in developing a sustainability strategy which includes better building design, a focus on electric vehicles and the digitalisation of onsite equipment, to build and operate greener airports.

While aircraft emissions make up a majority of aviation-related carbon emissions, 2% of the industry’s total emissions relate to landside activities. And these could grow significantly over the next few year.

According to CAPA (Centre for Aviation), there are 425 major infrastructure construction projects underway at existing airports (brownfield) and 225 new (greenfield) airport projects.

Most of the greenfield airports are in the Asia-Pacific (132) and Africa (32) regions. Countries with large geographies and populations, like India and China, are investing massively in improving their airport networks, while infrastructure growth in countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines is being driven by increased urbanisation, improved economic prosperity and rising living standards which are enabling more people to travel.

Much of the brownfield infrastructure improvement work in progress is happening in the global North – mainly North America and Europe – where ageing airports are being upgraded or expanded to enhance capacity and improve operational efficiency.

These airports were built 30-50 years ago, and while modernisation schemes have undoubtedly been implemented during that time, the challenges of increased passenger numbers and the growing requirement to manage operations more sustainably calls for more forward thinking, future-proof infrastructure.

This boom in airport development is a golden-ticket opportunity to make ground operations more sustainable, benefiting the aviation industry as a whole.

Better building design

A good place to start reducing airport infrastructure emissions is to focus on designing buildings and facilities which require less energy to operate. There is a saying that the cleanest kilowatt is the one never used. So, if you design a building to utilise more natural light or air flow, you don’t need to expend as much energy on mechanical interventions such as air conditioning or heating.

There will still be demand for power, of course, but better building design can minimise the amount of electricity used.

Renewable energy solutions should also be considered as standard in new airport buildings. Solar panels, for example, are an obvious solution when you consider the footprint of airport buildings and the available roof space for PV panels which can generate clean electricity all year round.

If it isn’t feasible to have renewable power generation onsite, a direct connection to a renewable energy source is a viable alternative. Melbourne Airport, for example, is powering its passenger terminals with a solar farm, while three new solar plants are being built to provide clean energy for Paris’ main airports.

Airport buildings must also look to get more output from less energy through diligent specification of electrical distribution, heating and cooling plant. Intelligent building controls can help to deliver optimal efficiency as can energy management tools.

Accelerating the roll out of electric vehicles

To deliver on the vision of a low-carbon airport, all vehicles operating in and around an airport complex (e.g. shuttle buses and luggage trucks) should be switched from gas, petrol or diesel fuel to more sustainable alternatives.

Best practice examples of sustainable transport options include the new automatic people mover (APM) project at Los Angeles International Airport, due to be operational later this year. The 2.25 mile electric train system will carry up to 87 million passengers a year and reduce vehicle miles by 117,000.

Or how about Birmingham Airport in the UK, which is switching its fleet of diesel shuttle buses with electric buses to significantly reduce energy consumption?

Singapore Changi and Eindhoven airports are currently trialling autonomous vehicles for the driverless transportation of luggage on the apron.

To facilitate all these different schemes, charging infrastructure has to be considered from the outset, and this should ideally be run on renewable forms of energy to further increase sustainability.

The emphasis on sustainable transport doesn’t stop at electrified ground transportation and passenger transfer vehicles, as passengers will be increasingly arriving at the airport in their own EVs in the future.

At the end of 2021, there were 16.5 million electric cars on the road. By 2030, they are projected to make up 60% of the world’s total car stock, totalling around 350 million vehicles.

Airports must be ready to fulfil the needs of these drivers, with a charging infrastructure that can cope with the variable load management, while delivering consumer needs and maximum charger availability.

Embarking on a digital journey

Airports are an increasingly digital environment, particularly since COVID as digital transactions help to minimise person-to-person contact. In 2020, VINCI Airports launched a 100% contactless biometric journey through airport control checks using facial recognition technology.

While this advanced tech isn’t in every airport yet, other digital functions such as self-service bag drops, check in and passport checks are now standard. There is a lot more scope for digitalisation in airports, and these can really move the needle on sustainability for green and brownfield airport projects.

When it comes to the digital transition, building and energy management systems take operations to the next level – Airport 4.0, if you will. Everything is fully connected, proactive and able to adapt in real-time to operational and customer requirements.

A digitalised, smart airport delivers an interconnected infrastructure where operators have complete visibility of airside and landside operations from one central command centre.

Everything from the central utilities, terminal buildings and airport mobility functions to the runway lighting and air traffic control can all be monitored and actioned from one hub, enabling proactive decision-making to improve efficiency, safety, security and the customer experience.

At Chengdu Tianfu International Airport in China, for example, operators installed intelligent building control ahead of its June 2021 opening. With it, the airport now has access to data insights to support its decision-making, which could generate potential energy savings of up to 30% while also keeping the airport operations running efficiently.

In the future, digitalisation will enable more advanced airport designs. The airports of the future need to balance renewable energy generated onsite and power coming in from the grid with battery storage (storing excess renewable generation) plus EV charging infrastructure. For this to run seamlessly, automation will be critical.

As digitalisation can touch so many aspects of airport operation, it can collect a lot of data, therefore cyber security is an important topic to highlight. Manufacturers and end users are working together to understand, evaluate and explore the best way to collect, protect and use data to enhance productivity and improve operational efficiency.

We work with Microsoft Azure to provide customers with a robust data management infrastructure to address data security concerns.

Flying into the future

Demand for air travel is only going one way – and that’s up! With that in mind, we must all explore the many ways that the aviation industry can operate more sustainably, and this means greater consideration for the impact that 650+ green and brownfield projects will have on carbon emissions and resources now and into the future.

It is important we use green technology to make the airport industry more sustainable, harnessing digitalisation and renewable energy to increase operational efficiency.