Taiwan has finished construction of it’s first solar powered sports stadium.Recently officially unveiled in time for The World Games 2009 which takes place in July.
Solar Stadium Taiwan
The sleeping dragon shaped structure, located in the city of Kaohsiung, has a seating capacity of 50,000 and its totally powered by Solar Energy. Adorned with over 8000 solar panels, covering an area of over 14,000 square metres, the architect say that this is enough capacity to run the stadium providing over 70% of the needed electrical power. Excess power will be fed in to the energy grid with enough capacity to power the surrounding area with 80% of its energy need when the stadium is not using the power itself.
The estimated power production of the stadium is a massive 1.14 million kilowatt hours of electricity which will be used to light the areana`s 3,300 lights and two massive Television screens. Designed by Toyo Ito, from Japan, the stadium was build with limited environmental impact and materials used in the construction were sourced from Taiwan to reduce the carbon impact produces by long distance transport. The surrounding areas are to be developed in a similar ecological way, with green parks, ponds and cycle paths.
As this is a building covered in solar panels, the efficiency of the power produced in not great as a dedicated solar power station. As well as being below the electrical production of a carbon based power plant built on a similar area. But this sports stadium that has limited impact on extra power needs in addition to its capacity to supplement the energy needs of the surrounding area. As more buildings, large and small, are designed to supply more of the energy requirements the needs for carbon produced electricity can be reduced without the need to turn out the lights.
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