Super Bowl to be hosted in first 100%-renewables stadium

From pv magazine USA

Super Bowl LVIII will pit the Kansas City Chiefs against the San Francisco 49ers in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Sunday, Feb. 11. This will be the first Super Bowl that takes place in Allegiant Stadium, home of the Raiders, which is 100% powered by renewable energy.

A 100% renewable sports stadium is no easy feat. During a game, an NFL sports stadium can use as much as 10 MW of power for five hours, or 50 MWh. Electric utility NV Energy told a CBS reporter that 10 MW is roughly the equivalent consumption of 46,000 homes.

Allegiant Stadium is taking an all-kinds approach to its sustainability and renewable energy goals. Solar energy is the dominant renewable energy source for the Las Vegas Raiders stadium, whose organization in 2019 entered a 25-year energy supply agreement with NV Energy to purchase generation from an off-site solar array managed by the utility.

The stadium subscribes to a portion of a massive 621,000 solar panel system that also has supply contracts with some of the resorts on the Las Vegas strip.

The solar supply deal took a two-stage approach in which the facility purchases power from the wholesale market, with excess capacity purchased from NV Energy’s current fleet of power plants. Beginning in the second half of 2023, new off-site renewable energy and energy storage facilities will reach commercial operations, and the stadium will source power from these new sites.

The $1.9 billion state-of-the-art stadium has taken many other measures for energy efficiency and emissions reduction. The building is LEED Gold certified, and additionally sources electricity from hydroelectric dams, geothermal energy and wind power.

Other Raiders and Allegiant Stadium sustainability measures include:

• Waste Diversion – The stadium diverts waste from the landfill and currently repurposes, reuses, or donates 20 material streams.
• Food Scrap Collection – On average, 12,000 pounds of kitchen prep cuttings and end-of-event food scraps are collected per large stadium event.
• Cigarette Waste Collection – Allegiant Stadium is the first stadium in the U.S. to divert cigarette waste from the landfill and convert that waste into energy. More than 69,000 Watts of energy have been created from this program.
• Raiders Field Grass Clippings – The field is on a track system that can move the grass outside, allowing for natural sunlight to grow the grass, rather than energy-intensive grow lights inside. The stadium diverts grass clippings to the onsite biomass machine. To date, 160,800 pounds of grass clippings have been composed or diverted.

“It has been and will continue to be our mission to develop and improve sustainable policies that reduce our environmental footprint while bringing world-class concerts, sporting events, and corporate events to Las Vegas,” said Chris Wright, general manager of Allegiant Stadium.