€25M to help airports transition to low-carbon mobility

TULIPS, a collaboration of 29 companies, has been awarded €25 million in funding by the European Commission.

The funding comes from the European Green Deal and will be used to create solutions that will help airports transition to low-carbon mobility and improve sustainability. Commitment from the entire chain is necessary to meet these problems in the difficult-to-abate aviation sector. This unique European partnership brings together airports, airlines, research institutes, and industry partners to make a substantial contribution to sustainable aviation.

TULIPS, led by Royal Schiphol Group, intends to accelerate the adoption of sustainable technologies in aviation and make a substantial contribution to zero emissions and zero waste airports by 2030, as well as climate-neutral aviation by 2050. 17 demonstrator projects resulting from the partnership will be tested at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. TULIPS is a project involving 29 partners that will begin in January 2022 and run through December 2025.

All new technologies targeted at enhancing sustainability will be demonstrated at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, with a selection of these innovations being implemented at partner airports Oslo, Turin, and Larnaka. Airports, airlines, research institutes, and industry partners will work together to improve sustainability at or around the airport, such as lowering or eliminating car emissions. In addition, facilities for charging aircraft with electricity or hydrogen will be tested, a large-scale supply of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) will be introduced and optimized, and materials will be used in a more circular manner. At the airside, demonstrations will be held to capture ultra-fine particles from departing and landing flights. The complete passenger and freight route will be reviewed, and options for an appropriate combination of multimodal systems will be suggested.

The impact of the solutions on the European climate targets will become clear by collaborating at four very different airports with feedback from a broad coalition of partners. The successful demonstration of particular initiatives to accelerate sustainability in various scenarios will highlight these breakthroughs and demonstrate how they may be adopted across Europe. The project’s results are projected to make a substantial contribution to the aviation sector’s decarbonization. The relevant knowledge collected will be made publicly available to the aviation sector and other European airports, allowing them to put TULIPS concepts and technology into practice through practical roadmaps.

Partners

The Royal Schiphol Group was the first to make a proposal. The TULIPS consortium (‘Demonstrating lower polluting soLutions for sustaInable airPorts across Europe’) is a collaboration between Royal Schiphol Group and Oslo Airport, SINTEF AS, SINTEF Energi AS, Hermes Airports, Catalink Ltd, Torino Airport, Politecnico di Torino, Beta-I, Egis S.A., Excess Materials Exchange, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, KLM) and Torin Royal Dutch Airlines, KLM Equipment Services, Manchester Metropolitan University, Mobility Concept, Royal NLR, Nouryon Industrial Chemicals, Pipistrel Vertical Solutions, Port of Amsterdam, SKYNRG, TNO, TU Delft, Instituto Superior Téchnico, University of Antwerp, BAM Infraconsult, Ballard Power Systems Europe, DHL Global Forwarding Netherlands, and Zepp.solutions are among the companies involved in the project.