Saturday, January 31, 2015

Super Bowl Teams are competing in the Solar Bowl too!

It appears that the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks are competing in another type of championship.  In what some are calling the “Solar Super Bowl,” the stadiums of the Patriots and Seahawks rank third and fourth respectively among all NFL stadiums in installed solar capacity.  Ranked by total cumulative capacity in kilowatts, only the stadiums of the Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Redskins beat Sunday’s Super Bowl rivals.

A growing number of sports facilities are going solar not only to be good citizens and protect the environment, but because solar is much cheaper than conventional energy!  Twenty seven major professional sports teams have solar venues.  To put that in perspective, last year in the U.S. nearly 30 million sports fans attended an event at a facility powered by the sun.

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (http://bit.ly/1JIUA2i), the solar systems installed at sports facilities across the United States saved nearly 20,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of planting half a million trees, or offsetting the equivalent CO2 emissions of 2.2 million gallons of gasoline.  

We commend the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks for recognizing that teams win when they go solar! May the best team win on Sunday, but we hope that the Solar Super Bowl continues to make champions for our planet earth, one solar system at a time.

Friday, January 30, 2015

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Dear Ted,
For the fourth time in just three years, a major professional sports championship will be decided on Sunday by teams which have invested significantly in clean, dependable solar energy. In what some are calling the “Solar Super Bowl,” the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, whose stadiums rank fifth and sixth among all sports franchises in installed solar capacity, will play for the NFL championship in Super Bowl XLIX on Sunday, and bragging rights for fans of clean energy.

According to a new, first-of-its-kind analysis conducted by SEIA, 25 stadiums, arenas and raceways in 12 states – which are home to 27 professional sports teams – now have either a solar photovoltaic (PV) or solar hot water system, with construction underway at two additional stadiums. Today, all leading sports leagues in the United States, including professional football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, NASCAR and the IndyCar Series, boost sizeable solar assets. To put that into perspective, last year nearly 30 million sports fans attended events across the U.S. at facilities powered by the sun.

In 2014, total PV capacity in professional sports facilities soared to 21.7 MW, generating a combined 28,000 MWh of electricity a year and offsetting nearly 20,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions. That’s the equivalent of saving 2.2 million gallons of gasoline or planting half a million trees.

On behalf of the 173,000 workers in our industry, we're extremely proud that solar energy has helped 'light up the scoreboard' for both the Patriots and Seahawks on their march to the Super Bowl.

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Thank you for all that you do,
Ken Johnson,
Vice President, Communications
Solar Energy Industries Association