Ground Control: Airports Focus on Microgrids and Resiliency, WTW report says
The CrowdStrike outage notwithstanding, cyber vulnerability is only one of the challenges facing the world’s airports.
The electric and on-site power requirements of airports will be five to 10 times higher over the next 25 years, a forecast by the World Economic Forum noted. And microgrids could offer the energy reliability, resiliency and sustainability which is critical to the industry, says a new report by insurance and financial advisory multinational WTW.
Ever increasing air traffic, passengers and extreme weather makes power resiliency more of an airport priority than ever.
“Meeting this is well beyond the reach of simply efficiency gains,” reads the analysis from WTW, formerly known as Willis Towers Watson, “and there is a growing awareness that airports need to make extensive infrastructure investments if they are going to be able to keep up with demand, particularly if the extra power needs to be generated in clean ways.”
The power vulnerability for airports was never made more obvious and painful than in Atlanta seven years ago. An underground electrical system fire in late 2017 damaged two substations and caused a complete outage lasting nearly 12 hours at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, resulting in thousands of canceled flights and financial damage to numerous companies in the air transport industry.
In fact, Delta Airlines later calculated it lost more than $50 million due to the Atlanta outage, while outside sources have said that the negative fiscal impact was closer to $100 million. The recent CrowdStrike cyber event has shocked many, but the 2017 power outage awoke airport planners everywhere to the vulnerability of their power supplies.
Since then, numerous airports have completed, started or are in process of beginning work on variations of microgrids closer to the system’s demand and infrastructure. These include Pittsburgh International Airport, which became the first major American airport fully powered by a microgrid via gas-fired generators, and the expansive Terminal 1 microgrid project underway at New York’s JFK airport.
In May, officials at Hartsfield-Jackson International announced collaboration with plane maker Airbus and hydrogen (H2) fuel cell equipment firm Plug Power on a feasibility study for a potential H2-based hub there. In a separate deal unrelated to Atlanta, Baker Hughes and Avports signed a memorandum last year to partner on developing hydrogen microgrids for airports.
The WTW report points out that microgrids offer airports more resiliency in the wake of catastrophic events such as extreme weather, which is ever more common, as well as power flexibility from a combination of on-site renewables, gas or diesel generators and a grid-tied connection.
“This could lead to airports changing their relationship with energy providers,” the WTW article reads. “In some instances, they are becoming power producers, contributing to the wider local community’s power requirements. Taking this process to its logical conclusion, some airports are already in the process of operating in parallel with their national grids by putting microgrids in place.”
In the U.S. alone, the growing number of airports having installed microgrids include regional, military and a few high-traffic international connections. In addition to projects such as Pittsburgh International and Redwood Coast in California, microgrid planning is being studied or underway at facilities such as Chattanooga Airport in Tennessee and Dallas-Fort Worth Airport in Texas.
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The WTW report does take several challenges into account when considering microgrids for airports, such as trying to build one in a complex environment with constantly moving parts. Microgrids can cost millions per MW so can be deemed too expensive to make them meet cost-benefit calculations, WTW noted.
