AoT Pathways for Airports to Develop into Energy Hubs April 2024

Pathways for airports to develop into energy hubs APRIL 2025 In partnership with Airports Council International (ACI) World, the Airports of Tomorrow initiative seeks to address the energy, infrastructure and financing needs of the aviation industry’s transition to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. This initiative is part of the World Economic Forum’s Centre for Nature and Climate. One of Airports of Tomorrow’s core focus areas is exploring the role of airports as energy hubs, building off a previous Forum initiative, Target True Zero,1 which defined the infrastructure required for hydrogen and battery-powered flight. The insights in this paper are informed by the Airports of Tomorrow community from key convenings and industry roundtables in Farnborough, Atlanta, Riyadh, Brazil and Japan during 2024, as well as discussions with ACI World and previous work on the Target True Zero and Clean Skies for Tomorrow Forum initiatives. In exploring airports’ role as energy hubs, hydrogen has emerged as a next-generation, low-carbon energy. Hydrogen is gaining momentum, with more than 1,500 large-scale hydrogen projects announced globally across industries and all types of hydrogen, according to the 2024 McKinsey Global Energy Perspective Report.2 By 2050, under the Sustainable Transformation scenario of the 2024 McKinsey Global Energy Perspective Report,3 there is expected to be 400+ Mt p.a. H2 equivalent demand, primarily driven by China, North America and Europe. The world supply is expected to match demand in 2050, primarily coming from North America, the Middle East and China. The purpose of this paper is to identify the pathways for airports to test and scale hydrogen solutions by outlining potential hydrogen use cases and the airport archetypes that may be best positioned across them. Identifying pathways for specific use cases by identifying suitable airport archetypes will be crucial for successfully integrating hydrogen solutions into airports. For the purposes of this paper, whenever we refer to hydrogen, we are specifically focusing on hydrogen for aviation that is produced through renewable or low-carbon methods (i.e., not “grey” hydrogen). 1,572+ project1 186 Giga-scale productionAs of May 2024 783 Large-scale industrial use 268 Transport 190 Integrate H2 economy 138 Infrastructure projects Note: 1. Project announcements below 1 MW are excluded. 7 projects have not announced project type Source: Hydrogen Council & McKinsey Project & Investment Tracker, as of May 2024In Collaboration with McKinsey & Company