Swedish airport opearator Swedavia is taking part in a feasibility study for fossil-free aviation in northern Sweden, which has been granted SEK 9.5 million by the Swedish Energy Agency. Part of the study involves investigating an electric air route between Umeå Airport and Åre Östersund Airport.
The project is being run in partnership with the Municipality of Umeå, BioFuel Region, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden and RISE Processum. The project’s aim is to investigate the conditions needed for aviation powered by biofuels, electricity and hydrogen. The overall goal is to map out the conditions required for green aviation and to survey sustainable value chains as well as studying what the conditions at the airports are like for introducing fossil-free fuels.
“For many years, Swedavia has been involved in and driven the transition to fossil-free aviation, which is absolutely crucial to the transport of the future, which includes aviation,” said B-O Lindgren, Airport Director at Swedavia’s Umeå Airport.
We have driven this work through a number of initiatives and in collaboration with the rest of the aviation industry, with a focus on increasing the potential to choose sustainable aviation fuel. We are also working to prepare our airports for handling electric aircraft when these are available in the commercial market. We consider it very positive that the project is now starting up with our partners. It will be an important piece of the puzzle in the continued work to achieve fossil-free aviation – regionally, nationally and internationally.
Swedavia, which operates and develops 10 state-owned airports in Sweden, previously adopted a strategy for electric aviation to enable all the airports in its portfolio to handle electric aircraft and that the first commercial electric air route can be placed in service in around 2025.
In the Autumn of 2020, Åre Östersund Airport became the first of Swedavia’s airports to test and prepare the infrastructure to enable a transition to the increased electrification of aviation, under the electric aviation project, Green Flyway.
