Airport Energy Security: Ameresco Deploys Solar, LEDs at Killeen Regional
A regional Texas airport is the latest such mission-critical facility to welcome on-site renewable energy and efficiency upgrades as part of its long-term sustainability and power resiliency vision.
The Killeen Regional Airport is now home to a 1.2-MW solar array atop the facility’s covered parking areas. Massachusetts-based developer Ameresco led the complicated project through to completion this year.
The airport energy resiliency work includes the solar arrays which serve the terminal, as well as power for parking lots. Ameresco also guided an overhaul of lighting with new LEDs.
“By integrating solar technology and energy-efficient lighting, this great project not only modernizes the airport infrastructure but also delivers significant cost savings,” Lou Maltezos, president of the Central & Western USA, Canada for Massachusetts-based Ameresco, said.
The nation’s airports are mission-critical and large-scale energy customers which can suffer chaotic chain reactions when they are down. The lengthy Atlanta International Airport outage in 2018 upended airline schedules around the world and eventually caused more than $100 million in financial losses for Delta and others.
The spectre of these outages has led many airports to embrace on-site power and microgrid developments. Among those major airport microgrids are projects completed or under construction in Pittsburgh, New York’s JFK and Dallas-Fort Worth in Texas.
“Airports are massive energy users,” said Ameresco’s Maltezos, in response to questions by EnergyTech.com. “They’re critical facilities—not just for transportation but from a security standpoint as well, so having power resilience is essential. That’s why we’re seeing more interest in distributed energy and microgrids at these sites; it’s about making sure they can operate independently if needed.”
The solar power is tied to the grid behind the meter, meaning that power is first consumed onsite by airport operations. It is only exported to the grid at times of excess production, according to Ameresco.
The solar installation will offset close to 68% of the airport’s typical purchased electricity, according to reports.
The $7 million Killeen Regional Airport energy upgrade is that Texas city’s first major solar project, according to Mayor Debbie Nash-King. Some $5 million of the cost is offset through a grant from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Airport Terminals Program.
“This is a day that we have looked forward to for many years,” Mike Wilson, Executive Director of Aviation for the City of Killeen, said in a statement. “The full project includes a complete LED retrofit of the entire Airport campus. I am very proud of this project because not only will it decrease the airport’s operating budget by lowering our energy costs, but it will also provide a much-needed upgrade to the customer experience.”
Killeen Regional Airport is the city’s second largest electricity user. The solar and energy efficient lighting project has been in planning since 2018, although it was delayed several times due to COVID-19 and inflationary economic impacts.
“There was a point when the project was basically shelved—but we stuck with it,” Ameresco’s Maltezos told EnergyTech.
“The airport leadership really wanted a sustainability showcase—something iconic for the community—and they’ve said repeatedly how much they appreciated Ameresco staying the course through all the ups and downs. It’s one of those projects where the partnership really made the difference.”
The New York JFK airport Terminal One microgrid planners, such as Schneider Electric and AlphaStruxure, have noted the complexity of doing on-site power installations at a site with so many moving parts such as airplane arrivals and takeoffs, as well as the supporting ground transportation in transit. Killeen Regional Airport is tiny compared to international connectors such as JFK, Atlanta and DFW, but building new energy capacity within a functioning and mission-critical facility takes extra layers of planning no matter the size of the airport, Maltezos noted.
“You’ve got FAA regulations, heightened security requirements and you can’t just roll up and start digging,” he pointed out. “Then there’s the operational side—you never want to shut down power at an airport, so planning the interconnects without disrupting service is a challenge. It takes a lot of coordination to make sure everything runs smoothly and safely.”
Killeen Regional Airport totals more than 100,000 enplanements per year, according to FAA data. It is adjacent to the Robert Gray Army Airfield.
Planning and delivering on airport microgrids will be in focus during a session at the upcoming Microgrid Knowledge Conference happening April 15-17 at the Sheraton Dallas in Texas.
