Sustainable airport runway lights for Malta International Airport
Sustainable airport runway lights for Malta International Airport
There is an increasing awareness of our impact on the environment and globally there are many organisations and individuals who are changing the way things are done to contribute to reducing the effects.
The aviation sector has taken up this challenge and is implementing different operational schemes to combat these effects. There are airports which are leading the way and have invested in new technologies to help achieve targets of becoming carbon natural.
Although being carbon neutral is the ultimate goal, this can only be achieved over a period of time but having annual goals to reduce energy requirements all contribute to the industry’s efforts.
Malta International Airport (MIA) is no exception; as a signatory to Airports Council International’s NetZero 2050 Resolution, MIA remains committed to continuing its drive towards carbon-neutrality for emissions under its control.
Recently MIA has committed to completing major lighting upgrades which will contribute to a significant reduction in energy consumption and resulting in lower CO2 emissions. While several locations around the airport have benefitted from the installation of LED lighting the most noteworthy improvements have been carried out on the airfield. The investment in newly installed floodlighting for Apron 9 has already seen the power consumption for this facility being a fraction of the old system.
The airport’s attention has also been focused on the airfield ground lighting system where many tungsten halogen fixtures were still in operation. With new technologies now able to meet ICAO requirements for lighting systems, the FX850A runway centre line lighting fixture was installed by the AGL maintenance team on runway 13-31. To ensure that maximum benefit was achieved from the installation the Micro100 constant current regulators’ (CCR’s) main transformers were re-tapped so as to better match the lower load on the circuit. It is expected that these circuits will now consume over 70% less power than the old fixtures.
The airport’s green initiatives, coupled with the generation of more than 927,000 kWh of clean energy from the airport’s PV panels in 2019 alone, sees them well on the way to achieving their environmental goals.
Images courtesy of Malta International Airport
