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Beijing to Open Airport Designed by Zaha Hadid

A worker walks inside the terminal hall of the Beijing Daxing International Airport under construction in Daxing district, Beijing, China June 19, 2019. Reuters
A worker walks inside the terminal hall of the Beijing Daxing International Airport under construction in Daxing district, Beijing, China June 19, 2019. Reuters
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Beijing to Open Airport Designed by Zaha Hadid

A worker walks inside the terminal hall of the Beijing Daxing International Airport under construction in Daxing district, Beijing, China June 19, 2019. Reuters
A worker walks inside the terminal hall of the Beijing Daxing International Airport under construction in Daxing district, Beijing, China June 19, 2019. Reuters

In response to the soaring air traffic and to celebrate the Communist government's 70th anniversary in power, China has invested billions in building a gigantic airport co-designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The new airport is reportedly the biggest in the world.

Millions of travellers, who will land annually in the Beijing Daxing International Airport, will be able to see the huge starfish-like airport and its five runways leading passengers to airplanes from a central point.

The airport's construction has been officially concluded on Sunday, ahead of its opening scheduled on September 30, and of the anniversary of the foundation of the People's Republic on October 1, 1949 by Mao Zedong.

Celebrations of that event will see President Xi Jinping reviewing a huge military parade through the center of Beijing, with the opening of the futuristic hub a fitting embodiment of the 'Chinese dream' he has offered his fellow citizens.

Located 46 kilometers south of Tiananmen Square, the new airport will help alleviate the congestion in the current International Airport in Beijing and its three runways located to the northeastern city with its 21 million people.

The new airport will operate at full capacity in 2025, with four runways and the potential to receive 72 million passengers per year.

By 2040, the hub will include eight terminals, one for military use, and will be able to welcome 100 million passengers per year, which will make it the world's largest single terminal in terms of traveler capacity, according to its designers.

Atlanta airport, in the United States, can currently receive more than 100 million passengers, but across two terminals. By comparison, all the Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport terminals, the tenth in the world, received less than 70 million passengers in 2017.

The current Beijing Daxing International Airport, the world's second largest, is already overflowing, with just over 100 million passengers annually.

Air transport is booming in China as living standards improve along with peoples' desire to travel. It will pass the US to become the world's biggest aviation market by the mid-2020s, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

Inside, the hub of the new airport stands out for its flowing, curved lines and use of light. It is designed by Hadid, who died in 2016, in conjunction with the engineering subsidiary of Aeroports de Paris.

The airport is covered with a ceiling of about the size of 25 football pitches, with openings that allow light to enter the lowest levels of the establishment. Unlike traditional airports, the new airport has been built high, with two floors for arrivals, two for departure, and a metro station – trains are found directly under the station. A highway will reach central Beijing from the new airport in 20 minutes, but connecting it to the current airport, which is 67 kilometers away, seems more complex.

The project cost 120 billion Yuan (15 billion euros) and 400 million, including the extension of railways and roads.

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Sunny Greece Struggles with Solar Energy Overload

Solar accounted for 23 percent of the 55 percent of electricity consumed from renewables last year. Aris MESSINIS / AFP
Solar accounted for 23 percent of the 55 percent of electricity consumed from renewables last year. Aris MESSINIS / AFP
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Sunny Greece Struggles with Solar Energy Overload

Solar accounted for 23 percent of the 55 percent of electricity consumed from renewables last year. Aris MESSINIS / AFP
Solar accounted for 23 percent of the 55 percent of electricity consumed from renewables last year. Aris MESSINIS / AFP

In a field in central Greece that once grew clover and corn, maintenance worker Nikos Zigomitros deftly drives a tractor between rows of solar panels, trimming weeds under a blazing sun.

"Letting them grow too high impairs the panel performance," the 52-year-old explains, wiping sweat from his brow.

Once a center of agricultural production, the area around Kastron Viotias, some 110 kilometers (70 miles) northwest of Athens, has seen solar parks mushroom over the past 15 years, part of a major renewable energy push in the country.

Greece currently has 16 gigawatts of renewable energy installed, with solar power representing nearly 10 gigawatts, including 2.5 gigawatts that came on line last year.

The rapid growth of solar is similar to other countries in Europe, where it has overtaken coal for electricity production, according to climate think tank Ember.

It estimates renewables have risen to account for nearly half of the EU's electricity production.

Greece did even better: 55 percent of annual consumption was covered by renewables last year, with solar accounting for around 23 percent, according to SPEF, an association which unites local solar power producers.

In 2023, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis predicted that Greece would "soon generate 80 percent of its electricity needs through renewables."

But getting there is proving complicated.

SPEF chairman Stelios Loumakis said that the solar sector has hit a wall because of a combination of factors, including Greece's small size, limited infrastructure and delays in building up energy storage capacity.

Saturated

The Greek state approved too many photovoltaic projects over the last five years and the market is saturated, leading to a "severe production surplus" on sunny days, the 56-year-old chemical engineer and energy consultant said.

Greece's national grid operator in May repeatedly ordered thousands of medium-sized operators to shut down during the sunniest hours of the day to avoid overburdening the network and triggering a blackout.

"The trick is to balance supply and demand. If you don't do it well, you get a blackout," said Nikos Mantzaris, a senior policy analyst and partner at the independent civil organization Green Tank.

In April, a huge blackout of unknown origin crippled the Iberian Peninsula. The Spanish government has said two major power fluctuations were recorded in the half-hour before the grid collapse, but the government insisted renewables were not to blame.

"It could be something as mundane as a faulty cable," Mantzaris said.

Batteries 'crucial'

To manage the surplus, Greece is building battery storage capacity. But catching up to its solar electricity production will take years.

"The next three years will be crucial," said Stelios Psomas, a policy advisor at HELAPCO, a trade association for Greek companies producing and installing solar panels.

In the meantime, solar panel operators will have to ensure production does not outstrip capacity, thereby limiting their potential earnings.

"Managing high shares of renewables -- especially solar -- requires significant flexibility and storage solutions," said Francesca Andreolli, a senior researcher at ECCO, a climate change think tank in Italy, which faces a similar problem.

"Battery capacity has become a structural necessity for the electricity system, by absorbing excess renewable energy and releasing it when demand rises," she told AFP.

Farm income

Mimis Tsakanikas, a 51-year-old farmer in Kastron, readily admits that solar has been good to his family.

The photovoltaic farm they built in 2012 at a cost of 210,000 euros clears at least 55,000 euros a year, far more than he could hope to earn by growing vegetables and watermelons.

"This park sustains my home," he said.

But the father of two also notes that the environmental balance has tipped in his area, with the spread of solar installations now causing concerns about the local microclimate.

Tsakanikas says the area has already experienced temperature rises of up to 4.0 degrees Celsius (7.2 Fahrenheit), which he blames on the abundance of heat-absorbing solar panel parks in the area.

"The microclimate has definitely changed, we haven't seen frost in two years," he told AFP.

"(At this rate) in five years, we'll be cultivating bananas here, like in Crete," he said.