Dutch stadium to power gigs with ‘super battery’
Johan Cruijff ArenA, the Netherlands’ largest stadium, hopes to power its concerts with a newly installed ‘super battery’.
It comes after the Amsterdam venue ran entirely on sustainable energy during last weekend’s football match between home team AFC Ajax and SC Heerenveen.
Everything from the elevators to the stadium lights and the beer taps to the lighting in the players’ tunnel was powered by energy from 4,200 solar panels on the venue’s roof.
The energy had been stored in two super batteries with a combined storage capacity of 8.6 megawatt hours – enough energy to charge 1.7 million phones or supply around 20,000 households with electricity for an hour.
“There are certainly other stadiums worldwide with a battery, but not on the scale that we have”
The stadium’s batteries are supplemented with green energy from a local wind turbine and solar park, purchased via the energy marketplace. An LED grass growth system for the turf and LED lighting are also part of the venue’s sustainability model.
Facility manager Meindert Slagt told Parool that the stadium, which recently hosted concerts with Taylor Swift and P!nk, hopes to use the green energy system for concerts too.
“Many artists still tour with diesel generators,” she said. “We are working on a permanent connection for light and sound so that they can switch to sustainable energy from our battery.”
The venue was an early adopter of sustainability measures, having installed its first battery in 2018, and hopes to realise Net Positive events by 2030.
As Slagt points out, ArenA’s super battery gives them an advantage: “There are certainly other stadiums worldwide with a battery, but not on the scale that we have.”
Battery-powered shows have already been embraced by artists including Billie Eilish, Bruce Springsteen, Lukas Graham and Dave Matthews Band, and festivals such as Lollapalooza.
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Liberty eyeing more music in ATL with The Battery
Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei has told investors Liberty is “increasingly a company [involved] in live performance”, as he unveiled plans to leverage his company’s stake in Live Nation to bring more live music to Atlanta, Georgia.
In an investors’ meeting yesterday afternoon, Maffei said The Battery – an under-construction entertainment district surrounding the new SunTrust Park (41,149-cap.) stadium, home to the Liberty-owned Atlanta Braves baseball team – said his focus is on “getting the rest of The Battery leased [and] seeing increased events around the whole experience, like more concerts from Live Nation”, with the promoter a “big part of” the company’s future plans.
The Battery has already hosted several live events, with John Mayer, TI, Glass Animals and comedian Dave Chappelle already having placed the 3,000-cap. Coca-Cola Roxy venue and a “strong line-up of concerts” planned for the summer and autumn, Maffei said.
The stadium itself, operated by Liberty’s Atlanta National League Baseball Club Inc. company, has also hosted headline shows by Billy Joel and Metallica.
“The Braves have begun a path to creating an awful lot of experience which is more than just putting a baseball team on the field”
Other major stadia in Atlanta include Georgia Tech’s Bobby Dodd Stadium (55,000-cap.) and GWCCA’s Georgia Dome (80,000-cap.), the latter soon to be replaced by the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
“Liberty is increasingly a company which has investment and operations in live performance, whether it’d be live concerts or live sporting,” Maffei told investors. “And I think you’ll see that the Braves have begun a path to create an awful lot of experience which is more than just putting a baseball team on the field. [The] Battery’s a part of that.”
In addition to Live Nation, Liberty’s other investments include motorsports series Formula 1, which it agreed to acquire last September, and satellite radio service Sirius XM, which last month pumped US$480 million into Pandora as the company sold off Ticketfly.
Live Nation rival AEG has of late been investingly heavily in Battery-style mixed-use entertainment districts, including in Tennessee’s Nashville Yards and Puerto Rican capital San Juan.
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