Istanbul Airport, one of the world's busiest transportation hubs, will be the first airport in the world to provide all of its electricity needs from solar power, specifically from a solar plant to be established in the central Turkish city of Eskişehir.
Some 439,000 PV panels will be installed for the 199.32 megawatts Eskişehir solar power plant project, whose construction has started on an area of approximately 3 million square meters (32.3 million square feet) by IGA Airport Operations.
The plant is expected to produce 340 million kilowatt-hours of energy annually with an investment of €212 million. It is planned to be operational by year's-end.
Selahattin Bilgen, acting CEO of IGA Istanbul Airport, told Anadolu that they developed the project as part of their commitment to 2050 Net Zero Target.
"We want to mitigate the important and worrying consequences of global warming and worldwide climate change with greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 105,996 tons of carbon dioxide that we will prevent with the building of this plant. I see the project as extremely important not only in terms of reducing foreign dependency on energy but also in terms of expanding the use of clean energy," he added.
He mentioned they have developed various projects in line with their goal of leaving a more livable world for future generations by prioritizing issues such as clean energy, economic development, and social welfare.
"While it is envisaged that the Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions of IGA Istanbul Airport determined in the Greenhouse Gas Protocol will be reduced 45% by 2030 and 73% by 2040, we plan to strengthen our environmental sustainability efforts and focus on main strategies such as decarbonization technologies, infrastructure support for the supply of sustainable fuels, energy efficiency and renewable energy in line with the targets to reduce Scope 3 emissions," he added.
Stating they have taken concrete steps such as reducing emissions from waste by 50% and gradually converting vehicle fleets to electric vehicles with waste recycling efforts, Bilgen said, "With the help of these steps, our total energy consumption fell 10.7% last year. We obtained 30% of the water consumed at our airport from reclaimed water. Our water footprint fell 5% from the previous year and we recycled 35% of our waste and ensured that it was recycled as raw material for our country's economy."
Bilgen explained that after the wastewater is collected with a wastewater sewage infrastructure system and treated at an advanced biological wastewater treatment plant with a capacity of 15,000 cubic meters per day, water quality monitoring is provided through online analysis, and the recovered water is used as landscape water.
Stressing all of the water used in landscape areas is provided from recycled water, Bilgen said: "Thus, 35% of the water consumed at our airport is provided from reclaimed sources. We continue to work to increase the recycle ratio."
Istanbul Airport, whose first phase officially opened in October 2018, is one of the most important and largest airports in the world, with around 100 million annual passenger capacity.
It is projected to serve 200 million passengers annually with full capacity after the completion of all four phases with six runways by 2028.
