The two NFL teams who competed in this year’s Super Bowl in the US this weekend have solar systems installed at their home stadiums, new research has revealed.
According to data released by America’s Solar Energy Industries Association, the New England Patriots have a 1GW solar system installed at their Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, while the Seattle Seahawks’ CenturyLink Field has 800kW of PV.
And they’re not the only ones. The SEIA data shows that one out of every three NFL stadiums has solar, the largest being a 3MW installation at the Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia – home to the Philadelphia Eagles.
The host of the XLIX Super Bowl, the University of Phoenix Stadium in Arizona, does not have solar, but instead will be entirely powered by wind energy on game day, via publicly-owned power utility, Salt River Project.
Beyond the NFL, however, the SEIA notes that all leading sports leagues in the US, including professional baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, NASCAR and the IndyCar Series, boast sizeable solar assets.
The biggest sports venue solar installation in the US is hosted by the Indianapolis Speedway, with 9MW to help power the world famous “Indy 500” car race.
According to the report, all that adds up to a total cumulative solar capacity in professional sports of 21.7MW as of last year, enough to power nearly 3,000 US homes.
In Australia, the Metricon Stadium – home to the AFL’s Gold Coast Suns – was the nation’s first ‘solar stadium’, with a 600-panel system that generates around 20 per cent of the stadium’s annual energy consumption, enough to power more than 50 Queensland homes.
Top image: “Adelaide v Gold Coast – Carrara crowd” by Michael Coghlan. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
© 2015 Solar Choice Pty Ltd
