When Pittsburgh International Airport CEO Christina Casotis heard about the blackouts that were forced to halt operations at London's Heathrow airport last week, she thought of workers desperately trying to manage the mess.
However, when the halt approaches the house, she has a more restrained response. It's calm and carried around.
For almost four years, her airport has been equipped with a mix of natural gas generators and solar panels on-site. The airport estimates that a standalone system known as microgrids can save about $1 million a year in energy costs and use the electric grid as a backup, Casotis said.
“We did that because we wanted resilience and redundancy,” she said. “An airport is an important transportation infrastructure. It should be able to operate no matter what.”
That level of energy independence is rare, especially at large airports.
Many airports have backup generators that help maintain important functions such as air traffic control and lighting in the event of a power outage. However, these standard emergency measures have restrictions. For example, if the outage lasts for hours and days, you may need to refuel. As a result, most airports rely heavily on external power to keep passengers and planes running.
However, US airports are increasingly experimenting with generating and storing electricity, typically using solar power and batteries, to curb carbon emissions, prepare for future electricity needs, and manage the upset disruptions caused by climate change and aging infrastructure.
Located at Denver International Airport Multiple connections to the grid have failed, but recently solar-powered battery storage systems have also been installed to run underground trains in emergencies. The $19 billion overhaul at New York's Kennedy International Airport includes plans to install thousands of solar panels and batteries to reduce emissions, and to maintain the new Terminal 1, which is expected to open in 2026.
“If there's a reliable and effective airport, we help support economic resilience,” said Joey Caskirt, a sustainable aviation expert at RMI, a Colorado sustainability nonprofit organization known as the Rocky Mountain Institute. He and his colleagues helped develop federally funded guides for airports that are interested in microgrids like Pittsburgh.
Power outages at airports are more common than many officials would like. The 2023 Government Accountability Office report identified 321 outages that lasted at least five minutes at two dozen US airports between 2015 and 2022. Airports and other infrastructure, like the electric network itself, are also threatened by natural disasters. The number of storms and other weather events that caused at least $1 billion in damage has steadily increased from five in 2000 last year, from 27 in 2000, according to the National Center for Environmental Information, part of the US Department of Commerce.
In late 2017, an electric fire caused a blackout at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, destroying flights across the country and costing Delta, the airport's largest airline, in tens of millions of dollars. That and other halts led Casotis to ask his team to look into the microgrids.
“We've basically just started the research process,” she said. “Can we even have?”
The airport in Marcellus Shale's natural gas deposits called for a proposal to design, build and operate microgrids at no upfront costs. By July 2021, the microgrid was in operation. Today, it generates 23 megawatts of energy. Three are from solar arrays above the old landfill, and the rest from five natural gas generators. In peak demand, the airport, which served nearly 10 million passengers last year, uses only around 14 megawatts, and is selling overloads on the grid.
The establishment of a microgrid owned by two energy companies has already received airport payouts, which have been locked up in low power charges for years, reducing carbon emissions of over £6 million a year.
The airport was also spared the chaos. The closure of Heathrow on March 21 disrupted global travel, overseeing more than 1,000 cancelled flights and thousands of passengers. Casotis said it started with a fire at a current substation, and something similar happened a few weeks ago near the airport in Pittsburgh. Fires near the substation were disrupting some of the power supply to the airport. The airport cut off these feeds to prevent the problem from spreading into the microgrid and continued to work as normal.
“When it comes to the dollars saved, there is real tangible value,” Cassotis said. “And there's peace of mind.”
Resilience is not the only reason an airport wants to generate and store electricity on-site.
Aviation accounts for 2-3% of global emissions and is a particularly difficult industry to decarbonize as there are few alternatives that do not emit jet fuel. Setups of solar panels like the thousands that Denver Airport already has, or the thousands coming to JFK, can help reduce the airport's carbon footprint. It also helps to complement the rising energy needs as a small aircraft that will transition to airport vehicles, shuttles, rental cars and ultimately battery power.
According to Scott Morrissey, senior vice president of airport sustainability, Denver's airport will be provided with two dedicated power systems, providing power to the entire facility and providing redundancy in emergencies. There is also a backup generator at the airport.
“When all these sources are electrified, we want to make sure their power supply is as reliable and resilient as possible,” he said.
The New York and New Jersey Port Authorities, which oversee JFK and two other major airports serving the New York area, also combine sustainability and resilience. With redundant power supplies and generators, Terminal 1 includes a huge array of rooftop solar panels, fuel cells and batteries.
“The lack of need to address that disruption is clearly a huge advantage in terms of business continuity,” said Jessica Forth, Chief Project Manager, who oversees wider airport overhauls, including terminal improvements. “Large international airports – Heathrow, JFK – these disruptions are everywhere. They are spreading widely across the airspace both domestically and internationally.”
For now, these ambitious projects are limited, but interest is growing. The Federal Aviation Administration offers airport grants to explore such options. Airport officials are also seeking advice from early Casotis and others who adopted solar panels and microgrids.
“As this market has evolved over time, there are a variety of options that should work at different types of airports,” says Lauren Schwisberg, who heads the research and project aimed at switching to less carbon-intensive electricity at RMI.
