In anticipation of the 2009 World Games in July, Taiwan has recently finished construction on a $150 million sports stadium covered in a tiled carapace of 8,844 solar panels spread over a hefty 14,155 square meters. The Toyo Ito-designed stadium, built in the shape of a dragon—a Chinese symbol of prosperity and fortune—boasts a capacity of 50,000 and supposedly houses enough solar panels to produce 1.4 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually and thus power the facility’s 3,300 lights and two enormous TV screens, according to officials. If these numbers prove to be true, this gorgeous stadium, located in the city of Kaohsiung, would one-up the Stade de Suisse in Bern, Switzerland, which sports 7,930 solar panels and generates only 1,134,045 kWh a year.
The stadium’s reptilian solar panel skin isn’t the only sustainable aspect of the project, as the facility also utilizes permeable paving and reusable materials, and seven out of the 19 hectares of development space have been reserved for public use, such as bike paths and parks. On the stadium’s off days, the Taiwanese government plans to feed the unused electricity generated by the solar panels into the local grid, an endeavor that has the potential to meet 80 percent of the neighboring area’s energy requirements.
All this sounds dreamy, to be sure, but as this Treehugger post points out, the orientation and angle of each solar panel are of high importance to a panel’s efficacy, and shingling the panels like this might not be the optimum solution. How efficient do you suppose this stadium actually is? Considering how much money the government poured into this stadium, is it possible that the solar panels are more for aesthetic effect (and bragging rights) than actual energy savings? Either way, it’s thrilling to see solar panels both used so beautifully and incorporated into a facility as a building material—I can’t imagine any neighbors complaining about these PV panels polluting their visual atmosphere.
For some pretty sweet pictures, check out the Guardian slideshow.
Hi,
Thanks for sharing the useful information.
such projects can really reduce the dependence on conventional energy resources like coal ,oil ,gas.solar panels allow you to produce energy for a wide variety of uses such as home lighting, heating systems and even for solar cooking. Although there are certain purposes that are not supported by solar panels for homes, consider the great amount of money you will be able to save in your bills.