Electric aircraft: Infrastructure challenges for airports

Aviation as an industry has committed to 2050 as the target date for carbon neutrality. This requires a shift to alternative fuels, with electric aircraft being one of the options, with several examples in the certification pipeline. As technology has trended towards energy efficiency, airports have not had an impetus to focus on increasing energy distribution capacity, and therefore, they will not have the infrastructure to support electric aircraft. This will be particularly true for smaller, general aviation airports. This paper draws on experiences with an electric aircraft to provide a snapshot of what it takes to interface with the airport grid, electrical infrastructure requirements for charging, charging inefficiencies, and other limitations. The findings can be scaled up to suggest broader requirements to meet the needs of widespread deployment of electric aircraft. Airport master plans should include provisions for expanding the electrical grid capacity and ideally implementing solar projects as a sustainable solution.