With major changes in store for the aviation industry, Connecticut’s Tweed New Haven Airport (KHVN) has been selected by NASA and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) as the first FAA Part 139 commercial airport in the U.S. to join the “Airports as Energy Nodes” research program. KHVN is operated by Avports.
A joint activity between NASA and the NREL, the program is aimed at determining how airports can provide the proper forms and amounts of energy needed for future aviation operations with consideration to scalability, affordability, and sustainability.
With the goals of zero-emission aviation, advanced air mobility, and electrification of vehicles, airports will require alternative forms of energy while positioning them as “a desirable component of the community energy solution.”
As part of the research, the NREL will create an energy virtual twin of the airport and validate it using its Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems platform. That will allow it to evaluate KHVN’s current and future energy demands.
“The goal is to develop robust solutions to an uncertain future mix of vehicles/energy needs and types, provide lasting community value, and enable investment pathways that accelerate adoption,” said Nick Borer, the program’s principal investigator at NASA. “Our objective is to work with NREL and regional airports such as HVN to generate data, reports, and designs of future airport energy architectures for full-scale development and demonstration.”