Swedish airport operator LFV achieves carbon dioxide emissions reductions of a third over last three years
Aquifer will supply Stockholm-Arlanda Airport with heating and cooling (all graphics and photo: LFV)
Mon 23 Feb 2009 – LFV, the operator of 16 Swedish airports including Stockholm-Arlanda and responsible for air navigation services in the country, claims it has reduced carbon dioxide emissions across the group by a third since 2005, from 15,000 tonnes to 9,900 last year. It is LFV’s intention to halve emission levels by 2010. The LFV Group is the first Swedish company to become a carbon neutral enterprise, which means that those emissions it cannot save are offset elsewhere through the purchase of emission reduction units or certificates. Stockholm-Arlanda is targeted to become a zero-emission airport by 2012.
Kenth Arvidsson, the head of Stockhom-Arlanda’s own energy supplier, Arlanda Energi, said there were three main reasons for the impressive drop in carbon emissions: the phasing out of oil-burning boilers, the renewal of most of the ground vehicle fleet and the involvement and awareness of LFV personnel in all environmental activities.
“So far we have achieved a great deal through both large and small measures, including simple everyday solutions to more advanced technical activities,” he said. “In order to take the next step towards our goal of reducing by half 2005 carbon dioxide emission levels by 2010 I believe it is necessary to focus on the type of fuel used by heavy vehicles in use at our airports.”
Examples of major energy saving investments in 2008 include a solar heat installation at Malmö Airport, a rapeseed powered boiler at Jönköping Airport and the use of a mobile telephone network to control lighting at Stockholm-Arlanda Airport.
Work started late 2008 to build a cooling and heating system for Stockholm-Arlanda utilizing an aquifer, which, when completed this year, will serve as the world’s largest energy storage unit, claims LFV, providing all the airport’s cooling requirements and 30% of its heating needs.
The aquifer is a huge groundwater reservoir that functions like a thermos. Cold water will be pumped up out of the aquifer in the summer for use in the airport’s district cooling network. Warmed-up water will then flow back and be pumped underground and stored until winter, when it will be used to melt snow in aircraft parking stands and pre-warm the ventilation air in buildings.
Arlanda consumes as much energy as a city of 25,000 people and areas as large as 100 football pitches need to be cooled in summer and warmed in winter.
The aquifer will reduce the airport’s annual electricity consumption by four gigawatt hours and its district heating consumption by around 15 GWh, the total equivalent to the energy consumed by 2,000 homes.
Since 2005, Stockholm-Arlanda has used only what it describes as ‘green’ electricity, and since 2006 its district heat has come from biofuel. The aquifer will free up a sizeable volume of green electricity and biofuel-based district heating capacity for others to buy, says LFV.
