27 May 2021: EUROCONTROL Stakeholder Forum on electrification at airports. On 27 May, Eurocontrol held a Stakeholder Forum [1] on electrification at airports, diving into airline operations, systems and aspirations and exploring the challenges and opportunities to make it happen.

Richard Emmerink from Schiphol airport stated that we cannot forgot COVID-19 as we are still in this crisis and still need to recover from it. Once recovered, we have a dilemma to face: we want future generations to explore the world and fly but we cannot continue to fly as we do now. Aviation is responsible for circa 6-7 per cent of global GHG emissions (including non-CO2) and the whole world needs to aim for net zero by 2050. At Schiphol, sustainability is at the heart of their ambition: Vision 2050, to create the most sustainable and high quality airports and define future by quality of network, life and service. Quality of life in Vision 2050 is defined by four issues: circular economy, sustainable aviation, energy positive and communities, with the end goal of becoming a zero emission airport by 2030. For sustainable aviation there is no silver bullet. On SAF they are partnering with various companies and looking into how to produce syn-fuels. There are four steps to take: there needs to be sense of urgency, needs to be embraced by vision and strategy for the entire airport, tough internal targets and finally create and action agenda for themselves and entire ecosystem. Sustainability is now the licence to operate.

Thomas Lagaillarde from NavBlue stated that the airline business is a very constrained business and sustainability is a must have. Fuel consumption is not in the best interest to be reduced (for example, tankering) and non-CO2 constraints (noise). How the airport and surrounding area can be key to improve sustainability of operations. First of all airspace design. It is something that airlines cannot influence but has big potential of reducing CO2 emissions from aviation. There has been a shift from design TMAs for capacity purposes to enhance the trajectory and reduce environmental impact. Use of technologies. Like PBN, can lead to a more predictable and precise trajectory (CCO/CDO) respecting the environment. On the optimisation of the airport operations, it was stated that it is a key point. For example, the on time performance on arrival is much better than on time performance on departure and turn around time. This can be improved via better communication between airline and airports with synchronisation systems. This is important from a sustainable stand point as delay generates additional fuel consumption.

Maxime Mahieu from Smart Airport Systems started off by explaining the mission of the company: to reduce emissions at airport while generating major fuel savings to airlines. This is by deploying two solutions on the ground: APU OFF, powering electrically the aircraft on the ground, and ENG OFF, deploying the TaxiBot. Aircraft operation is the main source of CO2, circa 55 per cent of total airport emissions. APU represents circa 8 per cent of total airport emissions and it is beneficial if APUs are turned off as soon as the aircraft arrives at the stand up to five minutes before departure. Whereas taxiing represents around 20 per cent of total airport emissions.

To view the full event, click here [1].

27 April 2021: EUROCONTROL’s forum on non-CO₂ emissions. On 27 April 2021, EUROCONTROL hosted a Stakeholder forum on aviation’s impact on non-CO2 emissions. Panellists included Professor Dr Robert Sausen (DLR), Olivia Nunez (SESAR JU) and Rudiger Ehrmanntraut (EUROCONTROL). 

The Forum was introduced by Marylin Bastin, Head of Sustainability at EUROCONTROL: the webinar aimed to explore the non-CO₂ climate impact of aviation, with a focus on contrails, contrail cirrus clouds and NOx and how they can be reduced. Last year’s publication from the European Commission suggests that non-CO₂ emissions from the sector account for 2/3 of its emissions, mostly contrails. These effects could be reduced significantly if the ATM community takes coordinated action. The panel aimed to address the following: the current understanding of the climate impact of non-CO2 emissions, how the sector can best address these impacts, what has been done so far in terms of operational measures, the challenges from a technological and operational perspective for non-CO2 emissions mitigation, and finally what further measures could be taken for the mitigation of these emissions.

Dr Robert Sausen explained the atmospheric effects of emissions from the sector. Apart from CO2, aircraft also emit H20, NOx, CO, VOC, SO2 and particles, which have an impact on the climate in various ways including via clouds and contrails. The lifetime of non-CO2 effects is shorter than the one of CO2, but the forcing is larger. In fact, contrail and contrail cirrus have the most impact in terms of effective radiative forcing (ERF), followed by carbon dioxide, NOx and aerosol effects. In total, non-CO2 effects contribute to 2/3 of the aviation ERF, which is larger than many other industrial sectors. In addition, non-CO2 can also occur if alternative fuels are used, also by burning hydrogen. The forcing depends on the location and time of the emissions. In order to mitigate the climate impact of aviation, Dr Sausen stated that it is necessary to reduce specific emissions by using alternative fuels or hydrogen/electric aircraft, which have an effect on absolute emissions. But it is also possible to focus on the impact of these emissions by optimising aircraft and operate on eco-efficient flight trajectories, by flying, for example, at locations and altitudes in which the climate impact is low. There could be a reduction of the climate impact 50 per cent for only 1-2 per cent additional fuel burn. This is currently being explored by MUAC/DLR. Dr Sausen also mentioned that some on the non-CO2 effects can be either warming or cooling and uncertainty remains, but this is not a reason to not take action.

Rudiger Ehrmanntraut addressed the mitigation of the climate impact of non-CO2. Prevention of contrail has a big role to play and MUAC is undertaking trials in 2021. The project asses how to avoid global warming caused by persistent contrails with eco-efficient flight trajectories. These include minor trajectory measures like diverting aircraft 2000 ft up or down from the normal flight path in order to reduce contrail and contrail cirrus formations. There is an opportunity thanks to the low traffic caused by COVID-19 crisis, in order to be ready with additional procedures once the traffic, and the sector’s environmental impact will be back. Predicting contrail formation is a challenge: at the moment they predict super-saturated regions which are avoided only vertically at the moment. MUAC is 12 weeks into the trial, which is ran every other day and the prediction must be improved. When traffic comes back, MUAC will try to operate the same procedures at high traffic levels.

Finally, Olivia Nunez outlined SESAR JU’s work on the topic. On emissions there are to areas of interest: airports and en-route, which was the focus of the webinar. There are a lot of uncertainties, but we do know that ATM plays a crucial role in mitigating the emissions released in the atmosphere. Aviation induced cloudiness is not always warming and we need to decide on what metrics to use when looking at the impact on climate: in the short term, the forcing of non-CO2 emissions is higher, while in the longer term CO2 becomes more critical. However, also in the short term, these high, permanent effects will also have a big effect on the climate. Therefore, a choice needs to be made on the reasonable look ahead time to optimise against. It is not as straight forward as CO2 emissions. More research is needed on the topic, but it is still important to act now. The sector needs to build on the approach taken by MUAC and also need to look not only contrail avoidance but also at effects that will be better understood in the future.

You can follow the full panel discussion and download the slides here [2].

24 March 2021: EUROCONTROL’s forum on non-CO₂ emissions. On 24 March, EUROCONTROL held a stakeholder forum on hydrogen-powered aircraft. Hydrogen represents an important part of the sector’s solution towards decarbonisation, as CO2 reductions of 20-90% can be expected. Airbus, Group ADP and Clean Sky were among the panellists.

Ron van Manen from Clean Sky stated that we need to be part of the solution otherwise we will be part of the problem in the eyes of public and governments. And to decarbonise by 2050 we need a mix of solutions, from technology, sustainable aviation fuels and others. In particular, hydrogen is an exciting high-risk, high-reward strategy- the flights under 2,000km dominate flights and emissions (two thirds of emissions are produced by flights below 2,000 km). We are proposing a Clean Aviation partnership agenda, focussing on the window of opportunity represented by regionals and short range. It is more likely that hydrogen will be used in the form of fuel.

Glenn Llewellyn from Airbus stated that hydrogen is not something the sector is familiar with, especially for commercial aviation. As societal and regulatory expectations are changing very quickly, and this trend is likely to continue in the next years and Airbus wants to thrive in this context. Hydrogen represents a versatile solution: it covers a large part of the aviation market and emissions from the sector and is the holy grail in terms of its ability to reduce and eliminate aviation’s climate impact. When it comes to Airbus’ ZEROe project, by 2022-23 they will decide which concept to take to next phase and by 2025-26 they hope to develop the aircraft in order to have the EIS in 2035. An additional point to take into consideration is the infrastructure: if the right infrastructure that can welcome hydrogen aircraft is not put in place, then we cannot have hydrogen aircraft.

This point was further elaborated by Amelie Lummaux from Group ADP. In order to make sure that hydrogen aircraft can fly to and from airports we need to start working on this now. The ground system needs to be ready to welcome hydrogen aircraft and there are challenges in terms of airport compatibility of aircraft design, infrastructure on the ground must be ready (storage, distribution system, supply), we need to make sure that regulation is in place to make it legally possible to manipulate hydrogen at airports anywhere in world and we need to make sure that the supply chain is ready (production should be ready in quantity at large scale). Hydrogen also represents a political challenge (local communities need to accept it) and economic challenge (economic viability for aviation). There are also uses that are not directed to planes: vans also contribute to make hydrogen a reality in the future. As there will be competition for hydrogen with other sectors we must ensure economic viability and availability for aviation.

You can watch the full event here [3]