Most of Europe’s airports have pledged to become net zero by 2050, part of the ambition of the wider European aviation industry of reaching the goal. Brussels Airport however announced last year it wanted to significantly accelerate the target, aiming to reach neutrality by 2030.
Brussels Airport Company has already been carbon neutral for its own emissions as airport operator since 2018. Green energy is used for all buildings and infrastructure managed by the company for its own operations and for the fleet of company vehicles. The remaining emissions are offset by supporting green projects in Asia.
The airport has now started fitting solar panels over a 65,000 m2 surface which will not only provide its own operations with green energy, but also its cargo partners, supporting their green transition as well as its own. The panels are being placed on the newest buildings in the cargo zone, where Kuehne+Nagel, Worldwide Flight Services, Expeditors, Swissport and Herfurth are housed.
This new solar panel project is a major step in our ambition to achieve net zero carbon emissions.
Arnaud Feist, CEO Brussels Airport Company
“[The new solar panel project] doubles the solar energy for our own use as an airport operator and also allows us to provide locally generated green power to our cargo partners. Thereby enabling them too to further reduce their own carbon emissions”, said Brussels Airport Company CEO Arnaud Feist.
This first new installation should be ready by late May, so the green energy it produces will be available come June. The ambition is to achieve 27 MWp, which yields about 24,000 megawatt hours per year, by 2027. Brussels Airport will only be using half of what the new solar panels will be generating, while the other half will be made available to the cargo partners. Even with just half of the power generated by the new panels, the airport will still more than double the share of solar power it uses, increasing from accounting to 4% of the airport’s total energy consumption to 9%.
Further contributing to its decarbonisation, Belgium’s largest net zero heating system will be installed at Brussels Airport by early 2027. The new installation, which uses no gas at all, will lead to a reduction of about 70% of the airport’s total CO2 emissions. Measures will also be taken to heat the buildings in the cargo area without emitting any carbon by 2030.
