“Global Challenge, Global Solutions” is a series hosted on Climasphere highlighting inspiring, innovative, and creative global solutions to the challenge of climate change in the lead up to the next major climate conference, COP22. These solutions have been provided by members of the Earth To Marrakech coalition, a group of more than 50 media organizations, civil society groups, and businesses from around the world who are raising their voices in a collective call to move from words to action on climate change. Let’s send a message, from Earth To Marrakech: The solutions to climate change are out there, and they’re inspiring.
Big Data Fuels Aircraft Energy Reduction
By utilizing existing black box data, OptiClimb determines the exact aerodynamic characteristics of an individual aircraft, using that data to compute more accurate and efficient speeds and climb profiles for pilots to incorporate into the aircraft’s management system. This method allows for reductions of up to 10% of the fuel consumption during climb, the most fuel-intensive part of a flight.
According to Safety Line, inefficient systems mean that today 20% of the fuel dedicated to climb is uselessly burned. At the same time, airlines collect loads of flight data from their normal operations that are barely used. OptiClimb proves that using this data to compute slight modifications can result in valuable energy savings. Transavia, a member of the Air France KLM Group, is the first airline to adopt Safety Line’s new technology.
RELEVANCE OF SOLUTION
Air transport is responsible for 3% of global CO2 emissions.1 At a global scale, if aircrafts used OptiClimb to reduce their fuel use by 10% during climb, the potential savings would be nearly 20 million tons of CO2 each year, according to the company.
TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE:
By adopting OptiClimb, the average aircraft could save 450kg of CO2 emissions per flight.
Landing and take-off account for about one-quarter of the 16,000 annual global deaths associated with airplane pollution. OptiClimb can help reduce the number of these deaths.
An initial four-month trial with Transavia showed one aircraft potentially can save $80,000 a year. With 25 aircraft in its fleet, Transavia can save $2 million per year.