One of the most important fronts that we are working on in our airports in environmental terms is to moderate the amount of electricity we consume. A company-wide policy has been enacted to save energy in existing buildings and ensure that energy efficiency is taken into account in the design of new facilities.
For example, a series of energy efficiency measures were incorporated into the design of the new terminal building at Cancún Airport, Terminal 3, which has now been in operation for 18 months. To begin with, the building was designed to take advantage of natural light without overheating, which has allowed us to bring down both lighting and air-conditioning consumption.
The design of the air-conditioning system in this building makes it possible to further reduce electricity consumption: it is a flexible, modular system that automatically shuts off cooling plants when they are not required, depending on the areas in use inside the terminal and internal and external temperature conditions. Additionally, it has a water-cooling system that instead of using water at the temperature of the surrounding environment—generally between 20 and 30° C in Cancún—extracts it at low temperatures from an underground aquifer, thereby considerably reducing the amount of energy required by the system’s chillers.
During the year 2008, a systematic procedure was established for the nine airports in the Group whereby electrical systems are progressively shut off in different areas of the terminal buildings when they are not required for operations purposes (for example, switching off lights in luggage reclaim areas when no more flight arrivals are expected and in restaurants, shops and bars after opening hours).
In addition, we continued with our ongoing good practice programme to replace incandescent bulbs with energy-saving bulbs in all areas of our facilities, and to fit movement sensors in areas such as administrative offices and toilets that switch off lights when they are not needed. Campaigns have also been carried out among the company’s staff members to raise awareness of the importance of saving electricity.
The energy savings made by these measures have allowed us to almost completely offset the increase in consumption caused by the start of operations of Terminal 3 in Cancún: between the 2007 and 2008 periods, overall consumption per passenger in the Group increased by just 0.7%.