Powering Electric Aircraft at O’Hare Airport: A Case Study

Electrification of aviation can potentially mitigate carbon emissions of air travel. Battery-electric and hybrid electric aircraft will impose charging requirements on airports. In this paper, we study the impacts of electrification on electricity demands at O’Hare International (ORD) airport. We consider the scenario where domestic US carriers partially adopt hybrid electric aircraft (HEA), but operate their airplanes based on current flight schedules. Under various battery technology evolution scenarios, we then compute the increase in electricity demand (both daily average and peak) to operate flights at ORD. The data analysis reveals substantial increase in airport energy demands that demands grid upgrades at airports.