Oh sure, we've
seen photovoltaic panels
strewn across rooftops
before, but this takes things to a whole 'nother level. Taiwan's $152 million National Stadium, which will proudly host the 2009 World Games, is home to no fewer than 8,844 solar panels. With under a month to go before the events kick off, construction on the Toyo Ito-designed arena wrapped just in time, and we're told that some 55,000 observers will soon be spectating underneath the eco-friendly shelter. Early reports have noted that in optimal sunlight, the solar panels can cover around 75 percent of the stadium's energy needs, and on days when the facility is dormant, the power generated is simply fed into the grid in order to help the local community. So, who's down for a trip to Kaohsiung? Sunscreen's on us.
[Via
Inhabitat]
posted May 21st 2009 8:03AM
I think they're the first to do this.
They might be the first to do this but I think they are not sure at all how this will help them.....I mean just look at it. They built the whole structure in the shape of a big question mark :-P.
En español even
@Tinu: They've been watching too much Lost.
I see what you did there.
why is it that whenever i read about a massive solar project like this, no matter how enormous, it always generates 50-75% of the power, they never add those last few panels to bring it to 100%
uhh because places like this use a HUGE amount of electricity...
Where would you put these 'last few panels?' And unless there are events every day I think it's fair to say it'll be putting more back in.
Go to the Inhabitat link. According to this article this building provides 100% of it's power requirements and 80% of the local grid requirements when the building isn't in use. Now that sounds a bit optimistic, but, you gotta give them credit for their effort.
And I agree in part with Treacherous about nuclear, but at the same time, we can't just rely on that. 50 years from now solar will be the only way to go, but we have to keep trying with the technology we have now in order to keep figuring out better and cheaper ways for the future. Nature has already provided us with a nuclear solution, the sun.
Unless Hollywood releases the blue prints for Mr. Fusion...but I'm betting on solar for the long term solution.
I know small villages in Germany that produce more electricity with solar power than they consume, so they feed their local grid. And Germany isn't really known for being too sunny a place...
The discussion there is more like: "Yea of course you can power an ordinary city with wind and sun, but how about that giant aluminum factory? Were does sun get you there?"
What I want to say is: You have to start somewhere. 20 years ago we didn't believe the sun would provide enough power for our homes. Right now we don't believe it provides enough for our industry and/or mobility. I wonder what we don't believe tomorrow...
Perhaps they could also build the playing field out of solar panels? har har har....
@Sebastion
Are you Kay?
1) That Building looks friggen cool!
2) Finally they're doing this sort of thing.
I mean all these massive building being built and they could always just put one of these roofs on. I'm sure the incentive if a Private company did this it would be really great PR and would cost so much(just guessing).
"hug from Ma Earth"
Dirty look from Pa China.
+1 on so many levels
China is NO pa or any sort of Taiwan
Taiwanese still dreaming US / Japan are their Pa or Ma, what a biggest joke on earth is this......lol~
That is awesome.
That design makes me picture a cell bursting open and releasing a swarm on deadly viruses.
i realize that's a big place but it's also a lot of freakin panels. that many can really only cover 75% of their needs huh? maybe they assume 75 under maximum load. either way this thing will be idle more than under load so i guess it makes up for that 25% over and over.
btw i say we demolish kansas and the eastern half of colorado and make a uber crazy mega huge solar farm. hell anyone who wants to stay can have a job on a solar farm fixing, cleaning and whatever els they need done. maybe we can finally polish up the old rust belt.
Make that "Wind" Farm a "Moisture" Farm and I'm there. Besides, it wont cost that much to demo Kansas, there's nothing there, but lay off of colorado, that state's cooler than you will ever be.
No thats what the continent of africa is for. At least it is in my perfect world:)
I think it looks like a blue serpent.....
more like a toilet bowl
now that you mention it.... I was paying more attention to the scale-like structure.
Seriously, why are we messing around with huge, clunky, inefficient solar panel technology when we have harnessed the raw power of the atom.
One nuclear power plant will cover the power needs of several large cities, taking up less land, costing less money, using less raw materials (solar panels take a lot of raw materials to build), and contributing less to air pollution than almost any other electricity generating technology. And it can do all that safely and efficiently.
Because putting a nuclear plant in the middle of the stadium would make it rather difficult to host the Olympic events.
>rolls eyes
wow, i think you are seriously missing the point here. nuclear power is no news to Taiwan. in fact, if you spent the time to look into it before spouting out such a ridiculous statement, you would've found out that there already are three reactor sites on the island.
http://www.insc.anl.gov/pwrmaps/map/taiwan.php
i think this is a brilliant way to begin harnessing energy without seriously impacting everything else around the stadium. i wish more people would consider this option when building these mammoth stadiums.
Aww, did I hurt your feelings wagon? :'-(
no dude, you just made a dumb statement. note the fact that i wasn't the only one to point it out...
Never mind the 100,000 half-life seriously toxic waste, I'l get interested when fusion plants come on line later this century.
Fission plants are the (kinda)thinking man's coal.
Nuclear is safe and clean.
@jon - actually long half life = less dangerous b/c it's emitting radiation at a slow rate.
The shorter the half life, the deadlier the radiation...
@John
Thank you for the elementary school physics lesson, because that direct correlation is exactly how all radiation works. /roll eyes/
As terrifying as alpha sources that become inert in a few minute are, I'm a little more concerned about fission byproducts that will still be lethal in a quarter million years.
@neojew
Nuclear is safe and clean... except when China has about five thousand missiles pointed in your direction at any given moment.
They already put nuclear power plants on the best beaches of Taiwan, they wouldn't put another one in a top touristic spot like this. They need these things because the swarm of Chinese tourists will generate 100% revenue (which is more important than 100% power) when they buy merchandise from the stadium (probably made in China).
Fusion power cometh. I think we should be investing more towards that research, speed things along. Looks like 50 years away last time I checked. We should work on making it 10-20 years.
So what's the costs of all those panels? I bet it takes decades to realize a savings, if ever.
10 years would be brilliant, this stadium is going to be in operation for a lot longer than that.
you haven't catch the point. The problem with such one-time-big-action stadiums is that they are almost impossible to use for anything else, because they got enormous expenses for normal (far smaller) actions. If you cut the energy cost to about zero, you make it possible to use the stadium for local use.
P.S.: the ROI would be from my professional experience about 10 years - 8 would be probably minimum, it can be about 12, question is if they recieve special price from vendors because it is great promotion, the question is also if the panels replace the roof panels (so you save some money), and also if they could use standard panels or they have to have something special because of the design of the building.
giant blue toilet!
still great idea!
that's pretty cool!
can someone tell me how much power that thing can generate??
1.21 gigawatts?
Hahaha, Montreal stadium cost more than 1.6 billion, is in a very bad state and have no more baseball team. This one look like a big success to me! I love the design.
Yeah I'm curious about the build costs to. Just a freaking new stand on Denmarks national stadium in Copenhagen costs $240m.
it looks like a giant millipede is eating the city...
that thing looks beautifull
looks crap for spectators. why is the pitch/track so far from the seats?
@ David
Quite possibly - ok most definitely - because it's a track stadium, not a football-specific stadium. Notice the rounded field corners and space for 6 or 8 lanes around it? You see this alot more in La Liga / Serie A where stadiums can be used for full track events and not just field- specific sports.
Flush after use...
Great achievement and hopefully some more places/stadiums start implementing this technique. Why cant the new Florida Marlins stadium incorporate this? or any new stadium under construction? Wouldnt the benefits outweigh its costs?
$152 Million (US) to build a stadium for 55,000? One of those figures has to be off by a factor of 10. That's gotta be the cost of the panel installation.
I just read about this stadium on a green social network called Greenwala. It's great to see that engineers and trying to come up with viable solutions to some of the greatest energy drawing offenders out there (I wish they'd spin their magic in New York City, too) but I think it's a shame that this design is such an eyesore, despite the Feng Shui approach. Wouldn't it be cool if they could camouflage the solar panels with a living barrier? I heard about living treehouses on www.greenwala.com and would imagine that the concept could be applied to this project. If anyone wants to check it out, here's the link: http://www.greenwala.com/my_videos/356-Grow-A-Treehouse-With-Terreform
This could be great for the stadiums here in the States! With the MANY stadiums all over the country... Just think of the possibilities of giving back to the community that they inhabit! Would this be a perk for building a stadium in your backyard?!
This is a really cool idea. Especially since they'll be feeding the local power grid as well for the community when it isn't in use!
Great idea. When do we get these in the US? After Exxon goes bankrupt?
I'm from Kaohsiung!!
me too! when the hell did they start bringing in good architecture?
I had been in Kaohsiung for 6 years.
The city has been changing radically in the past decade and progress to a even better city than the capital city (Taipei) IMO. The stadium is kinda like a milestone in city planning, and a beautiful one.
If the 'grid' there works anything like the 'grid' here, which it most likely does, they're not giving back, they're getting paid for the power they generate, which is probably what convinced them to put the panels in, they can make up for the cost easily, and after the cost of the panels is accounted for (and most likely the rest of the stadium), they'll have a building that can earn them profit when it isn't even doing anything.
To that extent, good idea.
Good but looks awful.
Wonder what the efficiency of these cells are. They must have some crazy cooling system for dissipating excess heat.
this is a great project! I would like to see the longevity and maintenance cost but this should be every new stadium in the US...
Didn't Bill Gates house cost exactly that much? For shame.
Is it just me, or does that kind of look like a fancy CPU heat sink?
Now why can't our London 2012 stadium look that cool?
I have 5kW of solar on my roof and one thing I think of every time I see these monster installations is - Who is going to clean those things! I was losing about 10% (which works out to quite a few dollars per month) until I washed the panels. Now I have to get up on the roof at least twice a year. Rain alone doesn't seem to clean them enough.
Great another giant toliet seat, guess the "birds nest" couldn't be the only one in that part of the world.
Imagine every household in the united states installing solar panels on their own roof.
http://www.energizm.com
hey i'm Taiwanese -.-
i know this stadium but i haven't been there XD
it's cost many money = = isn't it ?