Two more yrs before airport can switch to green power

FEGP has the potential to save airlines tonnes of money annually by cutting down on expensive air turbine fuel (ATF) while also reducing emissions and noise pollution.

Across the world,airports are moving towards adopting the more environment-friendly Fixed Electrical Ground Power (FEGP) units at the airports. Not to be left behind,in June the Indian regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation issued its first aviation environment circular for the year,by asking Indian airports to also affect this move. No other airport besides Delhi has FEGPs in India.

A MIAL spokesperson said that CSIA had inherited the infrastructre from Airports Authority of India (AAI),which did not come with FEGPs installed. “The CSIA airport in Mumbai will also get FEGPs when the integrated Terminal 2 comes up at the end of 2012,” he said.

FEGPs can act as an alternative to the ATF powered Auxillary Power Units (APU) of the aircraft. After an aircraft lands and its main engines are turned off,it switches on to the Auxiliary Power unit for power and the all important on-board air-conditioning back up. At many metro airports,in the absence of FEGP,airlines opt for the less expensive diesel run Ground power unit (GPU) and air-conditioning carts as an alternative to the APU after landing.

“Experts feel that than an FEGP is 6-25 times less expensive than an Auxillary Power Unit (APU),depending on the aircraft type. An European Union study shows that use of FEGP and PCA (Pre conditioned air) instead of APU reduces GHG emissions up to 40 per cent,” said Amber Dubey,Director,Aerospace and Defence,at the consultant firm KPMG.

At the IGI airport in Delhi,an airport officer said that airlines could expect to cut costs by at least a third or a fourth using an FEGP. “Even if they save a few hundred rupees with each flight,it would save them a lot of money on an annual basis,” he said.

At many European airports however it is mandatory to use the FEGP. “At Heathrow,the FEGP user charges are less than Rs 900/ hr which is significantly lower than the cost of ATF burnt by APUs which works out to Rs 5000 per hr (B727) to Rs 7000 (A320) to around Rs 18,000 (B747),” Dubey said.

Last year,when the air fuel costs were sky rocketing,Air India which has around 200 GPUs across the country issued a circular asking its pilots to switch off its Auxillary power Unit as much as possible and turn to the diesel run Ground Power unit and the air-conditioning carts. But pilots and engineers say in India,non-metro airports like Lucknow,Amritsar do not even have GPUs in place; and air conditioning carts are even more rare to find. Sometimes even if they do have the GPU,it would make little sense to opt for it if the turnaround time for an aircraft is less than an hour.

Airline officials say,a switch over from the GPU to the FEGP at Indian airports would be more appealing if it makes economic sense. “At some airports abroad,the user charge for an FEGP is more expensive than running an APU. So even if it is much more quieter ¿ which makes sense especially at night,and environmentally sound,airlines will look at economics and prefer to run the APU,” he said.

Rain forces runway to shut for 20 minutes
The main runway 09/27 at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport was closed for 20 minutes on Tuesday afternoon after heavy rain,which led to waterlogging and some cracks on the runway surface,disrupted the services. As the secondary runway has not been in use because of the monsoon,all operations at CSIA were shut for 20 minutes.

According to a Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) spokesperson,the surface of the main runway had to be urgently repaired,after heavy rains caused some damage. “The runway was closed from 12.40 pm to 1 pm for urgent maintenance work,” he said.

The MIAL undertakes regular maintenance work on Tuesday from 12 noon to 2 pm. However,they have not been able to follow this schedule in the recent past because of continuous rains. As a result of this closure,one arriving Kingfisher flight from Delhi was diverted to Ahmedabad,which later landed in Mumbai. “This unexpected closure resulted in some delays,” an ATC officer said.