A crucial part of aviation’s drive to decarbonise — and meet its net zero emissions goals — is to reduce emissions at airports. With early emissions reductions’ compounding benefits particularly important, what can be done, where should airports place their focus, and what quick wins have early pathfinder airports achieved? We sat down with Claire Waghorn, sustainability transition leader at Christchurch Airport, the primary gateway to New Zealand’s South Island, to learn what has been most impactful in Christchurch’s net zero efforts.
Christchurch Airport, Waghorn tells us, is approaching its third decade of research, monitoring and taking action on its environmental footprint. “We began measuring our greenhouse gas impact in 2006, and have undertaken a huge number of projects since then to reduce our emissions. This includes setting science-based targets aligned to limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, and making sure our emissions reductions are ahead of these.”
To measure its progress, benchmark against other airports and learn from best practice, the airport is working with the Airport Carbon Accreditation programme. ACA is governed by ACI Europe, part of the Airports Council International, in partnership with the organisation’s Asia-Pacific, Africa, North America, and Latin America & Caribbean regional bodies.
At the time of writing, Christchurch Airport has reduced its scope 1 emissions — the category of emissions that are directly emitted by sources owned or controlled by the organisation itself — by 88 per cent compared with its 2015 baseline.
The greatest impacts towards reducing emissions, according to data from the airport, include a ground source heat pump system to replace the power generated by diesel generators, reducing its footprint by some one thousand tonnes annually of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions.
“In addition to this,” Waghorn says, “we installed gate groundpower, so aircraft can plug in to grid electricity rather than using jet fuel when waiting at gate. We have introduced a lot of energy efficiency improvements, including LED lighting and a Building Management System that constantly looks for energy improvement opportunities. We have transitioned our entire corporate fleet to zero emission vehicles and are working on the more difficult to transition vehicles, including utility vehicles and fire trucks.”
Early reductions and quick wins multiply quickly
Emissions reductions in the near term compound benefits year-on-year, making them particularly important as the aviation industry looks to achieve goals over the next years and decades.
Waghorn is clear that a key early emissions reduction opportunity comes from reducing direct emissions from fossil fuel powered ground equipment. Moving away from gasoline and diesel to vehicles with zero direct emissions is, she says, “a great opportunity that can be progressed now. This could include a mixture of hydrogen tugs, electric push backs, and solar airstairs.”
Not only does this bring direct decarbonisation benefits from what can often be rather elderly machinery, but it also provides early demand, physical installation and testbed opportunities for subsequent lower-emissions energy infrastructure — whether hydrogen, electric, or hybrid.
Working with airlines and aircraft operators to adapt their procedures to reduce emissions is also critical. “Our greenhouse gas report clearly demonstrates working to accelerate airline decarbonisation is the most material way we can have the largest positive climate impact,” Waghorn notes.
A key option in the current aviation technology stack is using gate ground power as soon as aircraft arrive at the gate. Data from Christchurch Airport suggests that if a typical Airbus A320 operator uses ground power for five hours a day, every day of the year, its emissions reductions would be something to the order of 730 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year. In a large helping of sweetener for airlines, the electricity cost would be approximately USD 6,000 compared with some USD 130,000 for the Jet A-1 fuel at current prices.
“Making sure we are ready is more than just the airlines purchasing new aircraft – we need to scale up the clean energy production, prepare the refuelling infrastructure, the airside and terminal layout, and ensure we have a secure supply of sustainable aviation fuel,” Waghorn says. “While we do this work, we also have to be cognisant of how we do this — ensuring we are taking climate adaptation requirements into account, and undertaking our transition in an equitable way, so as not to exacerbate existing inequalities.”
This infrastructure provision work, Waghorn emphasises, “is ultimately the most material thing we can be doing to accelerate the decarbonisation of aviation as quickly as possible. We are grateful to have a very progressive partner in Air New Zealand, which recently announced its intention to have zero emission aircraft in commercial operation by 2026.”
The Kiwi national carrier is working with Eviation, Beta, VoltAero and Cranfield Aerospace on small aircraft design, development and production, with a view of replacing its 50-seater De Havilland Canada Dash-8 Q300 fleet in due course, of which the airline currently operates some 23.
Like many — if not most — airports, Christchurch finds itself with a substantial geographical footprint with a limited number of alternative uses owing to the noise footprint and physical access blockers to potential development. A key part of the emissions reduction and future power plan at CHC is to develop one of New Zealand’s largest solar farms to the west of the airport’s two runways on what is currently undeveloped land.
This “onsite renewable energy precinct”, Waghorn explains, “will be used to help generate the energy required to fuel electric and green hydrogen future decarbonised aviation and land transport. We know displacing jet fuel will require a huge amount of energy, so the next three years for us is about lining up that large-scale energy generation, to make sure our airport has the ability to recharge and refuel with clean cost-effective alternatives as soon as airlines need it.”
But all of it, Waghorn concludes, rests on the digital tools and methodologies that the airport uses to manage its progress. “We wouldn’t be able to do the climate reduction work we do if we didn’t have the measurement and monitoring data to inform our decision making.”
Author: John Walton
Published 23rd February 2023
;
