Fans will soon pack MetLife Stadium for Super Bowl XLVII. The National Football League's 2013-2014 season championship game will be held on February 2 at 6:30 PM (Eastern). Following the power outage during last year's Super Bowl, organizers of this year's event are taking extra precautions to avoid disruptions to the East Rutherford, New Jersey stadium's electricity supply. At the same time, organizers are promoting the environmental aspects of the power supply for this year's game.
During Super Bowl XLVII at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana, a power outage moments after the beginning of the second half of play caused many of the stadium lights and systems to go dark. Between restoring power supply, rebooting computer systems, and letting stadium lighting cool and return to full power, it took 34 minutes for play to resume. Subsequent investigation revealed that the outage occurred when load-monitoring equipment had opened a breaker after detecting an abnormality in the system.
Organizers hope this year's championship is free from such disruption. MetLife Stadium and the rest of the Meadowlands Sports Complex is served by utility Public Service Electric & Gas Co. or PSE&G. Two power lines feed into the substation serving the complex, and on-site generators add additional capacity. PSE&G has been reported as expecting the game to draw as much as 20 megawatts of power, and the utility, NFL, and stadium owner have collaborated on measures and testing to ensure continuity of service during the big game.
Meanwhile, PSE&G's parent PSEG has partnered with the NFL Environmental Program to source renewable energy for the game. PSEG has agreed to purchase and retire a renewable energy credit, or REC, for every megawatt-hour of electricity used at the stadium, the AFC and NFC team hotels, and Super Bowl in Times
Square. 240 solar RECs are slated to come from PSE&G's nearby 3-megawatt Kearny solar farm, as well as 5,700 additional RECs from the 7.5-megawatt Jersey Atlantic Wind Farm near Atlantic City.
Beyond electricity, event organizers have committed that all the waste oil generated from food production during the game will be processed into biodiesel fuel by Tri-State Biodiesel, and
that all other food waste will be composted.
Presumably, most fans' attention will be focused on the game. Will the organizers' measures prevent power outages in an environmentally friendly manner?
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Showing posts with label stadium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stadium. Show all posts
Super Bowl 2013 power outage
Monday, February 4, 2013
The National Football League held Super Bowl XLVII last night at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. The game was interrupted by a power outage just after the second half started, which caused many of the stadium lights and systems to go dark. Play was delayed for 34 minutes as workers scrambled to resolve the problem. What happened to the lights at the Super Bowl?
Electric utility Entergy supplies electricity to the Superdome. According to a statement issued jointly with Superdome manager SMG, load-monitoring equipment sensed "an abnormality in the system". To protect systems and isolate the issue, that equipment opened a breaker and partially cut the power feed to the facility. While backup generators kicked in, the backup supply was insufficient to fully power the Superdome's lights and systems.
The Mercedes-Benz Superdome is a significant consumer of electricity. Statements issued by the Super Bowl New Orleans Host Committee suggest that energy usage for major Super Bowl venues including the Mercedes Superdome, Morial Convention Center, Team and NFL hotels, will consume up to 4,600 megawatts of electricity. (Note that this statement is improbable - it should likely read 4,600 kilowatts or 4,600 megawatt-hours. 4,600 megawatts would be about 15% of Entergy's 30,000 MW total generating capacity, and represents more power than 4 typical nuclear power plants can produce. In any event, the Superdome clearly drew a lot of power from the grid.)
The Super Bowl power outage will focus attention on professional sports' approach to energy. NFL teams and stadium owners have been exploring alternative energy for some time; for example, last year the Philadelphia Eagles considered developing solar panels and wind turbines on their stadium. Even the Superdome has invested in energy efficiency, developing an efficient exterior LED lighting system in 2011.
While alternative energy efforts can reduce operating costs and environmental impacts, they are unlikely to completely displace reliance on the utility electric grid. Stadiums' significant power demands during games far outstrip their electricity consumption at other times. This means that stadiums would need to install sizable distributed generation to be self-reliant, but would only need to run that generation for a limited number of hours per year -- making the economics of a distributed generation project challenging.
Traditional, utility-supplied power may remain the most cost-effective basis for large stadium electricity supply for now -- but leaves stadiums, players and fans reliant on their public utilities to keep the lights on. Team and stadium owners eager to avoid the embarrassment and cost of an outage will continue to look for solutions, including more backup generation and more robust grid connections.
Electric utility Entergy supplies electricity to the Superdome. According to a statement issued jointly with Superdome manager SMG, load-monitoring equipment sensed "an abnormality in the system". To protect systems and isolate the issue, that equipment opened a breaker and partially cut the power feed to the facility. While backup generators kicked in, the backup supply was insufficient to fully power the Superdome's lights and systems.
The Mercedes-Benz Superdome is a significant consumer of electricity. Statements issued by the Super Bowl New Orleans Host Committee suggest that energy usage for major Super Bowl venues including the Mercedes Superdome, Morial Convention Center, Team and NFL hotels, will consume up to 4,600 megawatts of electricity. (Note that this statement is improbable - it should likely read 4,600 kilowatts or 4,600 megawatt-hours. 4,600 megawatts would be about 15% of Entergy's 30,000 MW total generating capacity, and represents more power than 4 typical nuclear power plants can produce. In any event, the Superdome clearly drew a lot of power from the grid.)
The Super Bowl power outage will focus attention on professional sports' approach to energy. NFL teams and stadium owners have been exploring alternative energy for some time; for example, last year the Philadelphia Eagles considered developing solar panels and wind turbines on their stadium. Even the Superdome has invested in energy efficiency, developing an efficient exterior LED lighting system in 2011.
While alternative energy efforts can reduce operating costs and environmental impacts, they are unlikely to completely displace reliance on the utility electric grid. Stadiums' significant power demands during games far outstrip their electricity consumption at other times. This means that stadiums would need to install sizable distributed generation to be self-reliant, but would only need to run that generation for a limited number of hours per year -- making the economics of a distributed generation project challenging.
Traditional, utility-supplied power may remain the most cost-effective basis for large stadium electricity supply for now -- but leaves stadiums, players and fans reliant on their public utilities to keep the lights on. Team and stadium owners eager to avoid the embarrassment and cost of an outage will continue to look for solutions, including more backup generation and more robust grid connections.
Pro football goes green?
Monday, May 7, 2012
This year the National Football League's Philadelphia Eagles plan to install renewable electricity generation at the Eagle's home stadium.
Under the deal announced earlier this spring, energy and utility giant NRG will install 11,000 solar panels and 14 small-scale wind turbines at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. NRG reportedly plans to install solar panels along the south and west sides of the stadium as well as in parking lot space, with wind turbines lining the stadium's north and south sides. Construction is supposed to be complete by the end of 2012.
Sporting facilities like pro football fields typically consume most of their electricity during the relatively few days of the year when they are used, so these renewable electric generation assets may never fully power the Eagles' field during a home game. At these times, the stadium will most likely continue to draw power from the utility electric grid. For this reason, it may be no coincidence that the deal also calls for NRG to become the official supplier of grid power to the stadium.
On the flip side, the solar and wind generation will likely produce most of its power when the stadium demands relatively little power, making Lincoln Financial Field a potential candidate for a net metering program such as Pennsylvania has enacted. Over an entire year, reports suggest that the solar and wind assets proposed for Lincoln Financial Field will produce about six times the power used during all Eagles home games.
The NRG deal is not the first proposal to develop clean energy facilities at the Eagles' stadium. In 2010, the Eagles announced a similar partnership with Solar Blue, which would have included a natural gas-fired cogeneration power plant in addition to solar and wind generation. That project was ultimately scrapped.
Nevertheless, if the NRG project happens, the Eagles will join a growing trend of professional sports teams seeking to green their image, improve their sustainability, and cut their energy costs.
Under the deal announced earlier this spring, energy and utility giant NRG will install 11,000 solar panels and 14 small-scale wind turbines at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. NRG reportedly plans to install solar panels along the south and west sides of the stadium as well as in parking lot space, with wind turbines lining the stadium's north and south sides. Construction is supposed to be complete by the end of 2012.
Sporting facilities like pro football fields typically consume most of their electricity during the relatively few days of the year when they are used, so these renewable electric generation assets may never fully power the Eagles' field during a home game. At these times, the stadium will most likely continue to draw power from the utility electric grid. For this reason, it may be no coincidence that the deal also calls for NRG to become the official supplier of grid power to the stadium.
On the flip side, the solar and wind generation will likely produce most of its power when the stadium demands relatively little power, making Lincoln Financial Field a potential candidate for a net metering program such as Pennsylvania has enacted. Over an entire year, reports suggest that the solar and wind assets proposed for Lincoln Financial Field will produce about six times the power used during all Eagles home games.
The NRG deal is not the first proposal to develop clean energy facilities at the Eagles' stadium. In 2010, the Eagles announced a similar partnership with Solar Blue, which would have included a natural gas-fired cogeneration power plant in addition to solar and wind generation. That project was ultimately scrapped.
Nevertheless, if the NRG project happens, the Eagles will join a growing trend of professional sports teams seeking to green their image, improve their sustainability, and cut their energy costs.
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