GREEN AIRPORT
Driving sustainability is the key to future of Indian airports
By Ashutosh Shukla
In the globalised world, air travel is the single-most important medium for world connectivity, fostering global trade, transport, and travel. While it is true that the recent unprecedented challenges have stalled aviation sector for a considerable period, the world economies are already finding innovative ways to resume flying. As the countries round the world progress into more evolved economies, air travel will be more dynamic and entail more complexities.
There will be more people travelling than ever before. More complex models of flight travel will come into play. As increasing travel cost for the long-term may not be a pro-business solution, aviation companies will look for more cost-effective models of facilitating air travels while making their services more accessible for the masses.
While the sector and the world navigate through the current challenge, there’s an even bigger problem staring at us in the form of climate change. Therefore, like all sectors, sustainability is one of the most important aspects of the future of aviation sector. The global aviation industry produces 2 per cent of all human induced carbon dioxide emissions in the world, while it amounts to 12 per cent of CO2 emissions from all transport sectors. Contrary to popular perception, it is not the airplanes that are so much a cause for concern. Today, jet aircrafts are 80 per cent more efficient than the first jets of 1960. There has been good success in identification of sustainable aviation fuels. With 82 per cent occupancy, which is greater than other modes of transport of the world, the latest airplanes use less than 3 litres of jet fuel per 100 passenger kilometers.
The greater challenge lies in the airports itself. Being huge energy users, large airports can daily consume equivalent electricity and thermal energy as that of a small city of 100,000 people. Amidst growing complexities and footfalls of air travel, it’s the airports which have to undertake a major transformation not only to achieve sustainability objectives.
Green Initiatives at the Indian Airports:
Apart from various private airports in India which has been recognized by global bodies for their green initiatives, there have been significant measures initiated by Airport Authority of India (AAI), which achieved Airport Carbon Accreditation “Level-2: Reduction” certificates from ACI for four of its Airports last year.
Furthermore, AAI has implemented several other measures, including energy audits, invested in solar power plant installations, LED light installations, so on and so forth, across various airports.
However, to progress towards the airports of the future, it is essential that India works towards Airport 4.0. Energy utilization and building in operational efficiencies as two of the most important factors towards sustainability. The airports of today need to adopt advance technologies, automation, and big data for a more integrated, energy efficient and connected ecosystems while developing more decarbonized, sustainable and decentralized infrastructure. While Indian airports are moving towards green energy, the integration of microgrids would be a major move in bringing about the transformation. While relatively new to the aviation sector, microgrids have been tremendously successful in data centers, major healthcare facilities, and commercial buildings. Armed with self-contained electrical networks, microgrids empower airports on-site power management capabilities. The solution can be integrated with linear, conventional sources of power as well as with more dynamic renewable energy sources. Backed by distributed energy resources management capabilities, microgrids can optimize energy utilization and reduce energy wastage, especially for renewable energy sources with activating on-site storage facilities. Furthermore, they employ advance features to balance the supply and demand and ensure power continuity during outages, thereby providing cost saving and energy security.
Resource to Airport 4.0:
By investing into extensive digitization of the entire airport value chain and infrastructure management, Airport 4.0 will take the Indian aviation sector towards greater resource efficiency while taking it closer to larger sustainability objectives such as carbon neutrality in the coming decades. This can be made a reality by leveraging IoT, AI and data analytics and strengthening airports with end-to-end digital solutions.
In the decades to follow, sustainability will become increasingly crucial and leveraging new age technologies will be increasingly essential. The pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities of the aviation sector. It has only put spotlight on the urgency to adopt automation and digitalisation of the airport management and operations. For the future of Indian airports, the transformation must begin now, and en-route to Airport 4.0, achieving sustainability will be the key for a successful transformation.
(The feature is written by Mr. Ashutosh Shukla, Director-Transportation & Mobility at SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC India. Views presented are personal.)
