Manchester City football club is looking to drastically reduce its energy bills, by seeking planning permission from Manchester City Council to install 10,887 solar panels on their training facility and the Joie Stadium.
This project will potentially make them both one of the largest producers of renewable energy in international football, and the first UK Premier League club to undertake such a project.
Pete Bradshaw, Manchester City’s director of sustainability says: “[It will] completely offset the power required to run the day-to-day operations of the City Football Academy by becoming one of football’s largest producers of self-supplied, renewable energy.”
Considering the club’s goal of becoming carbon zero by 2030, “production and consumption of renewable energy has an incredibly important role to play.”
The club is looking to install 3,800 panels over footpaths and pitch-side areas at the City Football Academy, with another 3,000 possibly added to the roof of the Joie Stadium. The remaining 3,942 solar panels will be installed on the roofs of the site’s other buildings.
Manchester City predicts this will generate up to 4.39 MWh of energy every year – enough to power more than 2,000 homes.
The panels are expected to be in place by the end of the year, installed and managed by Manchester-based renewable energy developer Clearvolt.
Solar-powered football
Manchester City will join an international community of football clubs embracing renewable energy projects, such as Turkish club Galatasaray – which won a Guinness World Record in 2022 for its solar panel installation.
Ali Çelikkıran, the stadium director, commented that savings from the panels equate to the energy use of 2,000 homes and would cut 3,250 tonnes of carbon every year.
Dutch team Ajax and British Championship team Plymouth Argyle also have solar panels on their stadium roofs.
