Research of The Planning of Clean Energy Vehicles for Civil Airports
Wen Zhang
1,2
, Bo Li
1,2
, Wei Yi
3
and Jixiang Su
1,2
1
China Airport Construction Group Corporation
2
Beijing Super-Creative Technology Co., LTD
3
Beijing New Airport Construction Headquarters
Keywords: Civil Airports, Clean Energy Vehicles (CEVs), Planning.
Abstract: With the rapid development of the aviation industry, the concept of green and low-carbon has become a
consensus of the development of global aviation industry. In order to solve the pollution problems caused by
the application of conventional vehicles in airports, the Chinese government has called for the gradual
conversion of conventional vehicles used in airports into Pure Electric Vehicles. On the basis of the study of
the "Change from Oil into Electricity" project in the airport, the research analyzes the application status,
advantages and existing problems of clean energy vehicles at airports, and makes planning proposals for
airports airside clean energy vehicles on the formulation of clean energy vehicles planning objectives, the
layout of charging infrastructure, model selection of CEVs and estimated power load of CEVs and supporting
grid construction, airport intelligent charging management and other aspects.
1 INTRODUCTION
China is the world's second largest air transport
market, with the traffic of international routes
(including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) ranked as
the first in the world. CAAC is playing an
increasingly important role in international civil
aviation services, and is undertaking and facing
heavier responsibilities. As important infrastructure
of civil aviation, airports will embrace sizable
expansions in the current period and the future. By
2025, the number of airports will increase to 370 from
229 in 2017. However, in face of the rapid
development of the airports, the rigid constraints from
resources and environment to the development of
civil aviation are also getting stronger. Therefore, our
country has proposed the implementation of green
development concept in the whole process of design,
planning, construction, operation and management to
spur innovation along the path of green development.
At present, the development of new energy
vehicles has been elevated to a national strategy, and
the new energy vehicle is an important carrier of clean
and intelligent development. Internationally, the
CEVs are widely used in Los Angeles International
Airport, Seattle Airport, and Stockholm Airport, etc.
By estimation, the gasoline and diesel oil consumed
by the airport's special vehicles account for about
15% of the total energy consumption in airports,
which makes up an important part of operating costs
in airports, and also the important emission source
that influences the air quality of airport area. If the
existing more than 16,000 special ground vehicles
and equipment in the entire industry basically achieve
electrification, 130,000 tons of oil can be saved every
year and also air quality and working environment at
airports can be effectively improved . To this end, the
civil aviation has put forward the special project of
"change from oil into electricity" for airport ground
vehicles, transforming or replacing airports vehicles
driven by traditional fossil energy to vehicles driven
by electric energy and other clean energies, and
several airports in this sector have been chosen to
carry out the pilot work. The large new airports in
China have also made the planning for CEVs and
charging piles.
Therefore, on the basis of massive researches of
airports implementing "Change from Oil into
Electricity" project, this paper analyzes the
application status, advantages and existing problems
of CEVs in airports, and proposes suggestions for the
implementation of planning for CEVs in airports.
82
Zhang, W., Li, B., Yi, W. and Su, J.
Research of The Planning of Clean Energy Vehicles for Civil Airports.
In 3rd International Conference on Electromechanical Control Technology and Transportation (ICECTT 2018), pages 82-86
ISBN: 978-989-758-312-4
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

2 RESEARCH SCOPE
According to the regional function of an airport, it can
be divided into airside and landside. The airside refers
to the aircraft movement area and adjacent areas,
buildings or a part of that area in the airport, which is
more focused on the scope of airplanes movement.
While the landside refers to other areas as opposed to
the airside in an airport, which is more focused on the
activity of persons (passengers, owner of the goods
and staff). Therefore, airport vehicles can also be
divided into airside vehicles and landside vehicles.
The airside vehicles mainly include the ground
service vehicles ensuring airside operation, aircraft
flight and ground operation. The landside vehicles
mainly contain the vehicles ensuring the landside
traffic demand of passengers, staff and units stationed
in the airport. The landside vehicles are mainly social
vehicles and most of them do not belong to airports
authorities. With this background, this paper takes
only airside vehicles as the research scope.
There are many types of airside vehicles,
including aircraft trailer, baggage transporter,
passenger boarding stairs, platform truck, clean water
truck, sewage disposal vehicle, garbage truck, power
van truck, air source truck, air-conditioned vehicle,
aviation catering vehicle, snow removal truck,
aircraft deicer vehicle, patrol car, bird-control
vehicle, friction coefficient test vehicle, glue-
removing vehicle, command vehicle and other
aircraft auxiliary vehicles among other special
vehicles, as well as baggage tractor, baggage
transporter, airport shuttle bus, boarding vehicle for
the disabled, vacuum sweeper among other general-
purpose vehicles. The configuration quantity and
proportion shall be determined by the scale of the
airport. Figure 1 is the configuration proportion of
airside special vehicles in large airports.
3 TYPES OF CLEAN ENERGY
VEHICLES (CEVS)
CEVs refer to vehicles using unconventional vehicle
fuel as power source or using conventional vehicle
fuel but adopting new vehicle power device and
integrating advanced technologies on vehicle power
control and drive. Such vehicles equipped with new
technologies and new structures following advanced
technical principles. The vehicles include gas
(compressed natural gas) vehicles, electric vehicles,
and hybrid electric vehicles, etc.
According to the practice of the pilot airports, the
vehicles suitable for CEVs at present mainly include
the tractor, mobile aircraft landing stairs, airport
shuttle bus, guiding vehicle, baggage transporter,
lifting platform car, baggage trailer, forklift truck, and
VIP bus, etc. For class D and E airplanes, the platform
cars with large tonnage, power vans, air source trucks,
air-conditioned vehicles, deicing vehicles, snow
removal trucks and other types of vehicles are not fit
for adopting CEVs under current technical
conditions, since the electric vehicles cannot provide
sufficient power. While for the friction coefficient
Figure1 Proportion of Airside Special Vehicles in Large Airports
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
Aircraft trailer
Baggage transporter Passenger boarding stairs
Platform truck
Clean water truck, sewage
disposal vehicle, garbage
…
Power van, air source truck Aviation air
-conditioned
vehicle
Aviation catering vehicle Snow removal truck Aircraft deicer vehicle
Patrol car
Bird-control vehicle
Friction coefficient test
vehicle
Glue-removing vehicle
Command vehicle
Other aircraft auxiliary
vehicles
Research of The Planning of Clean Energy Vehicles for Civil Airports
83

test vehicles, deicing vehicles, snow removal trucks
among others, there is no electric vehicle available yet
at present.
4 APPLICATION STATUS OF
CLEAN ENERGY VEHICLES
AT AIRPORTS
In 2014, the Civil Aviation Administration of China
listed the project of "Change from Oil into
Electricity" as the priority of energy conservation and
emission reduction. In January, 2015, the CAAC
listed six airports with the throughput capacity of
more than ten million passenger-time, namely Beijing
Capital International Airport, Chengdu Shuangliu
International Airport, Kunming Changshui
International Airport, Changsha Huanghua
International Airport, Harbin Taiping International
Airport and Xiamen Gaoqi International Airport, as
the first batch of pilots of "Change from Oil into
Electricity" project. At present, the six pilot airports
and their on-site companies have completed the
construction of more than 160 charging facilities,
with 412 electric special vehicles put into operation.
4.1 Benefit Analysis of Clean Energy
Vehicles at Airports
Since there are varieties of airside vehicles in the
airports, we have selected the widely used shuttle bus
and the minibus for transporting passengers as
comparison objects to analyze the benefits of CEVs.
According to the measured data of an airport, a
contrast analysis of the fuel powered vehicle and the
electric vehicle burdened with the same guarantee
area is carried out. According to Table 1, it can be
seen that the energy consumption by the electric
passengers' vehicle is only 9-13% of that by the fuel
powered vehicle; carbon emission of the electric
passengers' vehicle is only 30-43% of that of the fuel
powered vehicle; and the cost of the electric
passengers' vehicle is only 31-45% of that of the fuel
powered vehicle. It can be stated that the CEVs can
effectively reduce energy consumption and carbon
emission in airports, and can improve the
environment quality on the airside and reduce energy
costs.
4.2 Existing Problems
During the implementation of the "Change from Oil
into Electricity" project, it is found that the site and
electric power resources in the movement area are
quite scarce, and the electricity capacity enhancement
and non-stop operation of flight for construction have
posed some challenges to the implementation of the
project. In order to guarantee operation safety and
efficiency in the movement area, the new charging
facilities and vehicle parking positions must meet
ground service requirements and demands of nearby
charging.
The primary problem facing airports built in
earlier years, which have been saturated in airport
operation is lack of power load for charging vehicles
in the movement area. Instead, only AC slow-
charging equipment can be built, the charging
efficiency of which cannot suffice to meet operation
requirements. The power reconstruction in the
movement area encounters dual problems of high
costs and engineering difficulty. In busy airports,
positions facilitating power facility reconstruction are
far away from aprons and vehicles have to travel a
long distance to be charged, leading to lower
operation efficiency of vehicles. As far as
reconstruction cost is concerned, it is necessary to
cross the taxiway for cabling system if the power
supply facility is built at the remote aircraft stands on
the apron, resulting in impact on operation efficiency
of airports and high reconstruction costs.
At the moment, few special vehicles are
completely suitable for civil aviation airports and
ground-type electric special vehicles available on
market differ from each other in battery materials,
battery voltage, battery capacity/specification of
charging interface, charging connection control
strategy and so on. As a result, such vehicles have a
Table 1: Benefit Analysis of Clean Energy Vehicles at Airports
Monthly Data
Large Shuttle Bus
Minibus
Minibus
Fuel Powered
Electric
Fuel Powered
Electric
Energy consumption (kgce)
1928.00
255.05
1312.17
120.39
Reduced energy consumption (kgce)
1672.95
1191.78
Carbon emission (kgCO
2
)
4216.33
1800.49
2869.57
849.87
Reduced carbon emission (kgCO
2
)
2415.85
2019.70
Energy cost (yuan)
8506.73
3802.89
5789.56
1795.05
Reduced cost (yuan)
4703.83
3994.50
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variety of chargers to match, which have different
safety protection functions and incompatibility has
led to repetitive purchase and low utilization of such
chargers, causing inconvenience in unified
management, all of which are coupled with other
problems to further lead to wastes of site resources in
the movement area.
In addition, it is imperative to solve the issues of
application of CEVs in severely cold zone and
disposal of waste batteries among other problems.
5 AIRPORT’S CLEAN ENERGY
VEHICLE PLANNING
5.1 Formulation of Planning Objectives
of Clean Energy Vehicles
So far, some airports have applied CEVs around the
globe and the percentage of CEVs in Seattle Airport,
Stockholm Airport, and Hong Kong International
Airport have reached 43%, 30% and 30%
respectively. Against this backdrop, planning
objectives of CEVs at airports shall be formulated in
combination with the short-run and long-run plans of
airports and CEVs development forecast, where
unified planning and staged construction shall be
made, with percentage of CEVs being specified at all
stages and power load and interface being reserved.
In line with principles of leading layout ahead of time
and moderate reservation and in combination with
airside facility layout and effective service radius of
special vehicles, the space for service, parking and
charging for airside CEVs shall be reasonably
arranged and reserved.
5.2 Principles of charging
infrastructure layout
The layout of an airport's charging infrastructure shall
fully leverage the guide of airport's planning, where
an overall layout shall be made by taking all factors
comprehensively into account in the principle of
"overall layout and elaborate configuration". In the
meantime, charging infrastructures shall be provided
in a differentiated and elaborate way in different areas
in airports according to driving, parking and charging
characteristics of all kinds of electric vehicles in the
scope of airports. In the airside area, driving and
working characteristics, consumption of electric
energy, charging characteristics of batteries and other
factors shall be considered comprehensively to
reasonably determine percentages of vehicle piles for
all kinds of special electric vehicles, plan the scale of
construction of charging facilities for special electric
vehicles, and ensure the demand of all kinds of
special electric vehicles to replenish electric energy
nearby is met.
5.3 Model Selection of Clean Energy
Vehicles and Layout of Charging
Piles
An airport's special vehicle operation areas are
mainly situated at the airport's airside, which are the
airport's special areas. A differentiation analysis shall
be made on driving characteristics and daily operation
and parking periods for all kinds of special vehicles,
which are developing in mature areas of domestic
airports and an assessment shall be made on the basic
charging demands of all kinds of special electric
vehicles after "replacement by electric energy" in all
special vehicles to ultimately determine types of
CEVs, positions and models of charging
infrastructure and configuration percentages of "fast
and slow charging" infrastructure.
5.4 Power load prediction and
supporting power grid
construction for clean energy
vehicles
According to characteristics to use and charge CEVs,
the capacity demand of the distribution power grid
supporting charging piles of such CEVs shall be
determined for different power loads categorized by
respective areas and periods at airports, and effects of
integration of massive charging infrastructure into the
distribution power grid shall be analyzed and
corresponding measures shall be put forward to
satisfy power demand of CEVs in airports and
guarantee safety of power grid and quality of electric
energy.
5.5 Airport's Intelligent Charging
Management
On the basis of Internet of Things, cloud computing,
mobile Internet and big data technology, intelligent
charging service management platform shall be
planned and built to realize remote real-time
monitoring of CEVs in operation and charging
infrastructure and meet the demands of safety
supervision over the airport's airside special CEVs.
On the basis of big data collection on the intelligent
charging network platform, load characteristics of
demand side of CEVs shall be analyzed and studied,
charging load control of CEVs in the airports shall be
realized by area and period in peak hours and bilateral
Research of The Planning of Clean Energy Vehicles for Civil Airports
85

interaction technology between CEVs and power grid
shall be applied to realize peak shaving, alleviate
pressure of power supply from the distribution power
grid, and maximize utilization of assets of power
distribution equipment.
6 CONCLUSION
1) The planning and construction of CEVs at airports
are important means to realize green and low-carbon
development in the industry and important measures
to implement the national strategy. The electrification
of the special vehicles at airports is brand-new and
requies attentions and efforts in all respects.
2) In application of CEVs at an airport, charging
facilities are a fundamental guarantee, whilst
advanced products, technologies and management are
critical. The planning of CEVs at airports shall follow
the principle of combining short-term and long-term
perspectives and be effectively connected to the
medium-term and long-term development plans of an
airport, thus integrating green development, safety
guarantee and service improvement, which shall also
improve the network integration, intelligence and
sharing capabilities of the project and reserve room
for the project expansion at a later stage.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work is funded by CAAC Technology
Innovation Guidance Program – Research on Energy
Consumption Management of Civil Airport
Terminals (MHRD20140319).
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