2.1.4. Airport Infrastructure Scenarios

This paper is about the energy requirements of an airport for the operation of hybridelectric aircraft, so only the most necessary supply technologies are briefly presented here. In principle, a Photovoltaic (PV) system, battery storage, wind power and an on-ground electrolyser/fuel cell also make sense to include in an airport network. However, this would go beyond the scope of this paper, which is therefore limited to the necessary components to describe the methodology, which applies to both presented scenarios in the following. Figure 4 shows possible airport infrastructure for a conventional fuel supply and fast-charging stations for the HEAs. This configuration is used with ICE + Battery HEA for the short-term and medium-term horizon. A 10 kV/400 V transformer connects the medium-voltage and 400 V AC airport grid. The left side of Figure 4 shows this connection to the medium-voltage grid. The AC/DC converters and DC/DC boost converters are connected to the airport AC grid, as described in simplified form in Section 2.1.2, to provide the necessary high charging currents. For the sake of simplicity, the regular 3-phase AC grid is shown here with a line for a better overview. In addition, the airport is connected to the AC grid as an electric load to supply the terminals, lightning, etc., with electric energy. Furthermore, charging possibilities for baggage cars, busses and other airport vehicles are connected to the airport. Finally, the lower part of Figure 4 shows the kerosene and SAF mixture ratio supply as fuel.

**Figure 4.** Airport infrastructure for the ICE + Battery HEA for medium– and short–term horizons.

Figure 5 shows possible airport infrastructure for a LH2 and battery hybrid electric aircraft. This configuration is used for the medium-term and long-term horizon with PEMFC + Battery HEA. The connection to the medium voltage grid on the left side above is shown in Figure 5. The AC lines are shown with one single line similarly to Figure 4. Furthermore, the AC/DC and DC/DC boost converters for the fast charging stations are shown in the upper part of Figure 5. The hydrogen production for the airport hydrogen supply is done off-site at a port near the airport. Wind energy is converted into electrical energy. This electrical energy is converted into hydrogen via electrolysers and liquefied (i, ii). Trailer trucks transport liquid hydrogen to the airport, and the aircraft can be refuelled directly (iii). This process can be seen on the bottom right-hand side of Figure 5.

**Figure 5.** Airport infrastructure for the LH2 powered PEMFC + Battery HEA for medium– and long–term horizons.
