Optimum Energy Management at Reduced Costs
Operating an airport is an energy-intensive business. In 2006, energy consumption at the Frankfurt Airport site totaled 1072,8 million kilo-watt hours. Major energy users at Frankfurt Airport include: Fraport AG (54 percent) and Lufthansa Group (25 percent). The remaining 21 percent is used by other Frankfurt Airport tenants. Main energy sources and products used at the airport include: electricity, followed by district energy for heating and cooling, natural gas and oil.

Electricity
Electricity is the main energy product used at Frankfurt Airport. Produced at four on-airport transformer plants, electricity is transported via a medium high-voltage network to current transfer stations in the buildings - where the current is transformed to low voltage, using decentralized transformer stations - and then distributed to the individual users.

Heating
Heating at Frankfurt Airport is provided by: district heating, a central gas-fired thermal power plant located at the airport, four decentralized heating systems fueled by gas, and several decentralized heating systems fueled by oil.
Heat is piped into the airport's heating network via six transfer stations as well as from the thermal power plant in the south of the airport. Through this network heat is conveyed to the transfer stations in the individual buildings and, ultimately, to the individual customers.

Air Conditioning
Air conditioning at FRA is provided by district cooling and by decentralized cooling systems. In January 2002, the airport shut down the large-capacity air-conditioning plant on site and converted to district cooling.

Natural Gas
Natural gas is primarily used for producing heat (thermal power plant in the south) to supply the airport's heating network. Canteens and flight kitchens at the airport make use of gas on a very reduced scale only.

Heating Oil
The use of heating oil at Frankfurt Airport has become insignificant. Only in 1996/1997 did heating oil consumption increase slightly as a result of the takeover of U.S. Air Base buildings not linked to the thermal power plant in the south.

(gWh= gigawatt-hour)

Specific Energy Consumption
In the past, Fraport AG set ambitious energy management targets for Frankfurt Airport. The company's strategy was to reduce both energy consumption in general and utility bills to tenants; the latter was successfully implemented. However, it was not possible further to reduce energy consumption per traffic unit, because the use of heating energy considerably increased in 2000 and 2001, when more buildings on the Lufthansa base were connected to district heating. In addition, extreme summer and winter temperatures in these years resulted in increased consumption of electrical, heating, and cooling energy. Furthermore, in the wake of September 11, 2001, the number traffic units dropped by about 2.6 percent from the 2000 level. If energy consumption is apportioned to traffic units (one traffic unit = 1 passenger or 100 kg freight/mail), consumption per traffic unit amounted to 15.7 kilowatt-hours in 2001. (Without the connection of additional buildings on the Lufthansa base, this figure would have been 14.9 kilowatt-hours/traffic unit). In 2006 total energy consumption per traffic unit was 14,5 kilowatt-hours.