Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport advances electric-aircraft planning, cites power and workforce needs

Mark Hanna, executive director of Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport, told a Citizens Club of Springfield audience that the airport is positioning itself to host emerging electric and hybrid aircraft and associated infrastructure, from ground chargers to possible vertiport facilities. "We applied for it. We got it," Hanna said of a state planning and research grant that funded a 2.5-year study on advanced air mobility (AAM).

The study, led by Hanson Professional Services' Susan Zellers, projects near-term charging needs that far exceed current airport loads: "We need to be prepared for serving electric commercial aircraft for a 3 megawatt, 30-minute turnaround," Zellers said, and later noted that peak charging scenarios could reach up to about 16 megawatts with long-term energy roughly on the order of 13,000 megawatt-hours per year in some scenarios. For general aviation aircraft, Zellers estimated initial needs near 1 megawatt.

Why that matters: serving several commercial electric aircraft in short succession requires significant local electrical capacity and rapid-response charging infrastructure. The airport has already invested in on-site…