News

Siemens Equips Nuremberg Soccer Stadium with Solar Power System

June 12, 2006 by Jeff Shepard

Siemens Power Transmission and Distribution, Inc. (PTD) installed a photovoltaic system at the Nuremberg soccer stadium that is being used for the 2006 World Cup, which is currently being hosted by Germany. The PTD project is part of the "Green Goal" program, a joint venture of the German government and World Cup 2006 organizing committee, which is intended to put assorted environmentally-friendly technologies and policies on display during the highly-publicized soccer tournament.

The Siemens engineers installed a roof-mounted system, which is the largest of its kind at any of the stadiums staging matches at the tournament, and has been feeding up to 140 kW of solar-generated power into the Nuremberg power supply system since its introduction on May 19.

The structure contains 758 solar modules that cover a total area of about 1000 square meters of the stadium roof, with each module delivering an output of 185 W of electricity on a "full sunshine" day. Two 60-kVA power inverters in master-slave configuration transform the direct current produced by the solar modules into three-phase alternating current at a voltage of 400 V. The power inverters are equipped with monitoring and display systems, which also enable remote monitoring and control of the system. To further optimize power efficiency, the Siemens experts took the geometry of the 42-meter high roof into account, and thus the position of the six rows of solar modules, when designing the power inverters and adapted the devices accordingly.