Airports and Economics

Increased Emphasis on ‘Green’
During this year’s finance and economics meeting in Seattle, ACI-NA also co-hosted its Environmental Affairs Conference. Key topics included Fresno’s solar panel project and a discussion of federal grants available for green initiatives.

• Russ Widmar, director of the Fresno Yosemite International Airport in California, highlighted his facility’s new 20-acre project that features 11,700 solar panels with 2.4 megawatt capacity. The public/private initiative went online June 15, 2008, and Widmar estimates it will result in an energy savings of some $13 million over 20 years — “I think it will achieve far greater results,” he adds. For the airport, he says, the project involved no financial risk, with World Water & Solar Technologies providing the $16 million investment to construct the complex.
  Widmar says that some 58 percent of the airport’s energy consumption is now related to solar; in fact, during peak hours, the airport has the ability to sell back energy to the state’s utility.
• Pamela Vanderbilt, an air quality scientist with CH2M Hill, offered a quick review of federal programs designed to help airports and others reduce their carbon footprint. Much of the discussion focused on dollars available from the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act; while some deadlines for those funds have passed, the overriding message from Vanderbilt is that there are programs in place to assist airports and their tenant operations. Among them:
  - The diesel emission reduction program headed up by the Environmental Protection Agency, which received some $300 million in stimulus funds.
  - The Department of Energy’s alternative fuel vehicles pilot program, which also received some $300 million in stimulus money.
  - DOE’s transportation electrification program, a component of which centers on replacing ground support and other airport operations equipment with non-carbon using technologies. Vanderbilt points out that this program in particular should be of interest to airport tenants that operate ground power units, tugs, and other support equipment. Money is also available for powerplants; cargo trucks; and shuttles/vans/taxis.