Colorado Rockies Score with Solar Power
by Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, St. Louis, MO on 04. 9.07
While the 2007 major league baseball season is just getting started, it's already clear that a few teams are winners in terms of making the national pastime a little bit greener. The Colorado Rockies have joined that fairly elite group of baseball franchises with the introduction of a 46-panel solar array, built in partnership with Xcel Energy. According to a very brief article at Renewable Energy Access,
The 9.89-kilowatt solar array, installed by Independent Power Systems, will produce over 14,000 kilowatt hours of energy, enough to offset the consumption of the Rockpile LED board over one year. In the walkway just under the system, a flat-panel monitoring system will show fans the real time consumption of the Rockpile LED board as well as the real time energy production from the solar array. Fans will also be able to learn more about solar energy throughout the season at an educational display inside the ballpark.
While some will argue that such moves primarily power the teams' PR efforts, the educational benefits of such stadium additions could be profound. Baseball parks are a familiar, even friendly, environments for many Americans, and displaying solar power in such venues could make renewable technologies seem a bit less foreign to many fans. Play ball! ::Renewable Energy Access
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I actually live a block away from where the Rockies play - 21st and Market.
I'm curious - the LED display board is just what shows the score, right?
Well, have you ever seen how huge an array of lights one of these types of stadiums have? That's pulling a huge amount of power, so these teams can have night games.
If they can offset *that* amount of power, man, hats off to them. But at the moment, those lights are on, even when they don't have games (perhaps for practice, perhaps just because, I don't know)
It would be also interesting to see if there's now an alternative lighting system that could draw less power. I'm assuming the lights are Halogen type lights. I've seen LED's, but usually they're small to tiny - can they be used with relative power savings for something this huge?
It was the time for some un to stand up and make smthing good: solar power. Great news!
A beautiful ballpark just got even better. Kudos to the Rockies management!