Energising the NFL

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Energising the NFL

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Through partnerships with seven National Football League teams, America’s largest solar developer NRG is leading the way in developing alternative energy platforms at stadiums across the United States.

Transcript of Energising the NFL

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Energising the NFL

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It’s been a very exciting year for us,” says Manny Rodriguez, vice president of sponsorship, events and charitable giving at NRG, a

company whose desire to redefine the way the people look at and use energy has seen it tie up long-term agreements with six “iconic” National Football League (NFL) teams in the past year, all of which see the energy company powering the teams’ home stadiums and many of which will lead to the creation of large-scale alternative energy platforms based around wind and solar power.

“Our focus is creating sustainable solutions for business. The NFL just happens to be something that people are really interested in. We’ve specifically partnered with these teams because of their iconic nature and because they’re in markets that we serve,” explains Rodriguez. “In Philadelphia it’s with the Eagles, in Maryland it’s with the Washington Redskins, moving on to Dallas we have relationships with the Houston Texans and the Dallas Cowboys, in New York it’s with the Jets and the Giants and in New England it’s with the Patriots.

“In fact,” Rodriguez continues, “Forbes recently ranked the top NFL teams and we have a relationship with the top seven. These are the top franchises in the NFL and what we’ve found during these conversations is that the teams that we partner with are elite for a reason – not only for their ability to play on the field but elite also because of the people who own and manage and work with them.”

Rodriguez describes the emergence

of a “tremendous desire and appetite within the NFL franchises to be environmentally responsible.” It is an attitude that, as technology improves and the cost of alternative energy decreases is being rapidly adopted across all of the world’s major sports leagues.

“Each team is different as to why they want to do it. Some want to be environmentally responsible, some want to create a great image for their fans and some recognise that it’s energy efficient and a cost-saver for them.

“The ownership of the Philadelphia Eagles, for example,” says Rodriguez, pointing to NRG’s most recent and largest agreement, “really believes in doing things for the environment. The Eagles ownership wants to leave a better world for their children and that’s something that’s incredibly important to them.”

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie is a noted environmentalist and the Philadelphia franchise has long been known as the NFL’s ‘green team’. Rodriguez explains how it was the Eagles’ earlier partnership with Florida-based Solar Blue, signed in November 2010, that “really set the bar” for what the rest of the teams in the NFL would do.

“It was a very strong, aggressive relationship,” recalls Rodriguez of the US$30 million construction project that aimed to see the exterior of the team’s home stadium fitted with 80 spiral-shaped wind turbines, 2,500 solar panels and a 7.6 megawatt dual-fuel generator – all of which would be enough to power 26,000 homes. And while on paper energy independence and US$60 million saved in energy costs over the next two

decades appeared an attractive proposal to the Eagles, ultimately the plans were so expansive and wide-ranging as to be deemed unworkable by both parties. “It was envisioned to be plug and play,” Eagles chief operating officer Rob Zeiger told the Philadelphia Enquirer in March 2012. “It turned out to be plug and rebuild and rewire.”

Picking up from where Solar Blue left off, NRG’s less visually impressive but perhaps more level-headed plans will see the installation of 11,000 solar panels and 14 micro wind turbines on and around the 70,000-capacity Lincoln Financial Field. “Originally there were wind turbines – that’s something the Lurie family was very interested in – so there are 14 of them, but from a similarity standpoint that’s really it. Everything else is unique and different to the original proposal. The Eagles’ original plans were primarily based around on-site generation whereas most of our generation is being generated by the sun.”

As to why NRG will succeed where Solar Blue has failed – and is consistently chosen ahead of its competitors – Rodriguez believes that its position as the largest solar developer in the

Through partnerships with seven National Football League teams, America’s largest solar developer NRG is leading the way in developing alternative energy platforms at stadiums across the United States.

Energising the NFL

By Tom Love

SPECIAL REPORT | ENVIRONMENT

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United States, combined with a company portfolio that includes interests in nuclear, wind, solar, natural gas and coal energy, means it is perfectly placed to serve as a one-stop shop to provide solutions for a wide range of energy plans.

“There are a lot of people out there who can do some of these things but we believe NRG is the only one that can do all of these things. We have all of the expertise and we’re uniquely positioned to deliver innovative energy solutions that no other competitor has the ability to do.”

Such diversity in NRG’s operations means that it is able to offer teams a range of sustainable energy solutions that make sense on a number of different levels, many of which are currently being implemented at football stadiums across the north east of America and all of which will be completed in time for the start of the 2012 NFL season. “There are a

lot of different opportunities, with solar clearly being the biggest and wind being a very distant second. Then electric vehicle charging stations are up there and onsite generation is always an option as well.

“We believe renewable energy makes sense, not only economically but environmentally, and we also believe that now technology has changed so much, aesthetically, it’s beautiful. Some of the designs that we’ve created can effectively be called kinetic art. They’re not your traditional black solar panels on a roof – they’re very beautiful, they create a statement and they’re good for the environment.”

So while in New York NRG is installing a ‘solar ring’ atop of the 82,500-capacity MetLife Stadium that, in keeping with the overriding theme of the stadium, will be able to change colours depending on which team is playing at home, at the New

England Patriots’ Gillette Stadium the company is currently in the process of tripling the team’s solar output through a one-megawatt system mounted at the adjacent Patriot Place shopping mall, in addition to installing a two-megawatt wind turbine on land owned by the team.

“NRG also owns a company called eVgo,” says Rodriguez. “It’s the largest privately funded, publicly available electrical vehicle charging station network in the United States, so vehicle charging stations are a part of a lot of these deals – in fact, at FedEx Field we’ve installed ten of them. And then on-site generation is something that the teams are interested in as well. Some have even talked about being completely off the grid where they do everything on site and the grid becomes the backup.

“The one thing that most owners don’t want is a gimmick,” says Rodriguez, dismissing the idea that for some teams the wind turbines and solar panels generate little more than positive spin. “If you take a look at the one installation that is built today, which is the Washington Redskins, we’ve just installed over 8,000 solar panels covering about 850 parking spaces. All of that will

“ We’ve specifically partnered with these teams because of their iconic nature and because they’re in markets that we serve.”

‘Solar Man’ stands in front of Washington Redskins’ FedEx Field, the site of 8,000 NRG solar panels

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generate about two megawatts of power, that’s enough to power the stadium on a non game-day and it’s enough to power about 20 per cent of the stadium’s needs for an entire year. For all of the teams that we have chosen to partner with, this is not a token, this is real.”

And while Rodriguez explains that on one hand NRG has entered these partnerships to help franchises meet their sustainable goals and to reposition the organisation as a different kind of energy company, “ultimately, we’re all in the business of making money so all of these deals have a business-to-business component to them,” he says with a refreshing degree of candour. “We do these things in the advent of making money.

“I can’t give specifi cs because of the competitive nature of it but in each of the deals we sign a couple of agreements with the teams. One is that we’re the offi cial energy provider for the teams – so we sign a commodity deal with them to provide energy. With the solar structures or in the cases where we’re building wind structures for on-site generation, we will sign a power purchase agreement so that any power generated from these devices – whether it’s solar, wind or alternative generation – we will capture the revenue. They’re all structured different but ultimately the ownership of these things goes to the teams. Each one of these deals has a phase two, phase three, that hopefully we’ll get to announce in the coming years. We’re not going to install millions of dollars worth of solar panels or wind turbines on a roof and then go and tear it down. These deals are all long-term deals and we think of them as partnerships so they’re all a minimum of ten years and all of them have extension clauses.

“There are very few jobs where you can point to something that you built and it’ll be there for a very long time. Personally it’s been a pleasure of mine to be able to work with NRG in order to create these alternative energy solutions. These are one of those things that for as long as these buildings exist, these installations will be there for people to see and enjoy and appreciate. I’m proud to be part of a unique energy company that really believes in doing things differently and changing the way the world looks at energy.”

Although NRG, through its subsidiary retail electricity provider Reliant Energy, has held the long-term

naming rights to the Houston Texans’ Reliant Stadium since 2000, its agreement with the Washington Redskins marked the fi rst major infrastructure deal with an NFL side. “The Redskins deal was announced in June and the solar installations were complete by opening day, 11th September,” reveals Rodriguez. “Again, because we have all the expertise internally it allows us to be able to do things on a very accelerated schedule.”

The development has seen the installation of 8,000 solar panels that, as well as satisfying 20 per cent of the energy demands of the 91,704-capacity FedEx Field on game days also serve as the roofi ng for roughly 850 cars in the stadium’s car park. “The car ports create a lot of interesting opportunities for people to avoid the elements,” Rodriguez explains. “Given that tailgating is big in the US we’ve built these carports to be 17 to 18 feet in the air so they don’t interfere with peoples’ ability to tailgate – they barbeque, they throw footballs.”

A further element to the project has seen NRG build a 30-foot, solar-panelled sculpture, built in the shape of a quarterback, that welcomes fans to FedEx Field. “It’s an iconic structure called Solar Man that has become the place to meet – it’s so big and you can see it from very far away. People are always taking pictures of it and interacting with our EV charging stations – some of them can’t get enough!

“In most of these deals we have different phases, so although we release phase one of the deal to the media, ultimately all these deals have further phases to them. In fact, we just completed phase two at the Redskins which was installing a back-lit solar LED to cover the South Gate walkway, which was previously exposed to the elements. In its place we’ve created a beautiful solar structure that not only provides power but also protects the fans that are exposed to the wind and the snow and the rain on the South Gate of FedEx fi eld. We’ve built all of these things to enhance the experience of fans rather than interfere with it and that’s created a lot of positive spin for us and for the team.”

Turning the Redskins green

NRG’s ‘solar ring’ at New York’s MetLife Stadium will be able to take on either home team’s colours

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