Gain Environmental Efficiency by Saving Energy

Project Information

GEESE

Grant agreement ID: 101114611

DOI

10.3030/101114611

Project closed

EC signature date 13 June 2023

Start date 1 June 2023

End date 31 May 2026

Funded under

• Climate, Energy and Mobility

Total cost

€ 8 791 343,75

EU contribution

€ 5 356 611,76

Coordinated by

AIRBUS
France

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GEESE (Gain Environmental Efficiency by Saving Energy)

Reporting period: 2023-06-01 to 2024-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The GEESE objective is to analyse how the demonstrated technology and environmental impact benefit can be brought to operations. In order to define in detail all the new procedures, operations and technologies needed to support the WER operation implementation, and to validate the operational feasibility of the so-defined new operating method, the GEESE consortium gathers representatives from all the most relevant stakeholders: ANSPs, Airlines, System Providers, Aircraft Manufacturers. On top of these operational stakeholders, a bunch of research organisations will support the project providing their ATM expertise.

The hereabove described high-level project objective can be broken down and better detailed looking at the project work-breakdown structure. On top of two project level work packages, dedicated to project management and CDE (Communication, Dissemination, Exploitation) activities, the following technical work streams are included in the project:

1- ATM solution 1: Introduction of WER operations in Europe to North Atlantic traffic.
The objectives of this solution are:
- Define a concept of operations for the introduction of WER operations in the North Atlantic Oceanic Airspace, and validate its operational feasibility at TRL6
- Analyse the impacts on legacy systems, when evolutions are strictly needed to support the defined operating method
- Analyse the impacts of the changes introduced by the solution on safety, human actors, security, european ATM performance indicators
- Validate the estimated beneficial impact on environment
- Analyse the cost-benefit balance, for the whole project and per each impacted stakeholder
- Analyse the impacts on current standards and regulations.

2 - ATM solution 2: Scaling up the WER concept to continental Europe
The objectives of this solution are:
- Define a concept of operations for the introduction of WER operations in the Continental en-route Airspace, and validate its operational feasibility at TRL4
- Analyse the impacts on legacy systems, when evolutions are strictly needed to support the defined operating method
- Analyse the impacts of the changes introduced by the solution on safety, human actors, security, european ATM performance indicators
- Validate the estimated beneficial impact on environment
- Analyse the cost-benefit balance, for the whole project and per each impacted stakeholder
- Analyse the impacts on current standards and regulations.

3 - Wake Science work package: this work stream is mainly focusing on the safety and climate impact assessment of the WER operations - for what concerns the wake physics behind the pair, both in terms of non-CO2 emissions and dissipation rate.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

With respect to the project objectives described in the previous section, the work performed up to now can be summarised as follows:

1- ATM solution 1: Introduction of WER operations in Europe to North Atlantic traffic.
- The concept of operations for the introduction of WER operations in the North Atlantic Oceanic Airspace has been fully defined in its nominal operational scenarios. A good amount of non-nominal and abnormal scenarios have been covered, some of them will be refined during the upcoming weeks. The validation of the operational feasibility of the concept of operation has started through some first validation exercises dry-runs. The validation plan shows that the concept of operation is fully covered by the planned validation exercises. Validation activities will continue being executed during 2025.
- First impacts on legacy systems have been identified in the TS/IRS document, together with the need for new systems/tools. The analysis will continue during 2025, going deeper into more refined details.
- Safety Assessment, Human performance Assessment, Security Assessment activities have been planned, the change identification phase is completed. The assessment activities will continue during 2025. ATM performance indicators impact have been estimated by engineering judgement and will be validated through dedicated validation exercises during 2025.
- Validation exercises providing measurements of the beneficial impact on environment have been planned and prepared for their execution in 2025.
- The cost-benefit analysis was initiated, by identifying the cost contribution on each stakeholder. The analysis will continue during 2025.
- A first view of the impacts on current standards and regulations was provided, and will be further refined during 2025.

2 - ATM solution 2: Scaling up the WER concept to continental Europe
- The concept of operations for the introduction of WER operations in the Continental en-route Airspace has been fully defined in its nominal operational scenarios. Some non-nominal and abnormal scenarios - in common with Solution 1 - are already covered. Some specific Solution 2 scenarios will be analysed during 2025. The validation of the operational feasibility of the concept of operation has started through some first validation exercises dry-runs. The validation plan shows that the concept of operation is fully covered by the planned validation exercises. Validation activities will continue being executed during 2025.
- First impacts on legacy systems have been identified in the TS/IRS document, together with the need for new systems/tools. The analysis will continue during 2025, going deeper into more refined details.
- Safety Assessment, Human performance Assessment, Security Assessment activities have been planned, the change identification phase is completed. The assessment activities will continue during 2025. ATM performance indicators impact have been estimated by engineering judgement and will be validated through dedicated validation exercises during 2025.
- Validation exercises providing measurements of the beneficial impact on environment have been planned and prepared for their execution in 2025.
- The cost-benefit analysis was initiated, by identifying the cost contribution on each stakeholder. The analysis will continue during 2025.
- A first view of the impacts on current standards and regulations was provided, and will be further refined during 2025.

3 - Wake Science work package: this work stream is mainly focusing on the safety and climate impact assessment of the WER operations - for what concerns the wake physics behind the pair, both in terms of non-CO2 emissions and dissipation rate.
- The simulation assumptions and simulation plans have been defined for both safety and climate assessment analyses. Simulation runs are on-going, results will arrive during 2025.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Despite the very positive findings thus far it is likely that further research and demonstrations will be necessary particularly in the safety management arena before WER can be considered ready for use operationally.