London Stadium exploring onsite solar installations

LLDC will undertake a feasibility study, which will cost around £60,000

London Stadium, which is formerly the Olympic Stadium and is now home to West Ham United football club, is aiming to play its part in helping deliver the Capital’s ambition of becoming a net-zero city by 2030.

The stadium’s owners, the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) – a body set up after the 2012 Olympic Games – has disclosed plans to run a feasibility study on installing solar panels on the stadium.

The Hackney Gazette has reported that the project would cost around £4m over a two-year period, with a payback of around five years.

LLDC’s budget documents state that the estimated generation would be around three million kilowatts annually and that the initiative could begin this year with power generated before the end of the 2024 financial year.

The documents state that LLDC will undertake a feasibility study, which will cost around £60,000.

A London Stadium spokesperson told edie: “London Stadium has an ongoing programme to achieve Net Carbon Zero in the long term. In recent years this has included the installation of LED lighting and significant efforts to reduce day to day energy consumption – to date this has delivered a 14% reduction. The provision of energy through solar or similar technology has been explored previously but was not possible with the technology available at the time.

“Recent developments suggest that the previous barriers – which included the weight loading required upon the roof – may now be addressable. The purpose of the feasibility study is to explore this and quantify the cost and benefits achievable. The outcome of this will determine how self-sufficient the stadium could become in the future.”

The document lists the solar project alongside other “currently unfunded climate measures” that the stadium is exploring. Other initiatives include a District Energy Network and energy efficient lighting and refrigeration systems are also outlined in the document as measures the Stadium will look to introduce to reach net-zero by 2030.