Sun-powered stadium makes the most of the weather
When the 8th world games open in Taiwan on Thursday, the event will inaugurate a new stadium designed not only to power, cool and water itself, but also to withstand the island’s typhoon and earthquakes. The world games is an international event for sports not played in the Olympics, including rugby, sumo wrestling, dragon boat racing, and other. Some of which will be hosted at the new stadium in Kaoshung. Designed by the famed Japanese architect Toyo Itoh, the stadium seats 55,000 people and ranks among the most environmentally friendly buildings in the world. Take for example the roof’s solar panels, they’re not just place atop the roof, they are the roof. The builders had to create new materials during construction and fit the panels together so they could withstand the elements while protecting spectators. The result is a roof design boasting nearly 9000 solar panels in all. And because the panels give the roof a scaly metallic look, local residents have called it the Crystal Snake, or Dragon’s Tail. Sensor chips on the roof keep track of all of the electricity in take and distribution, sending the information to servers in the control station. The roof cost around 24 million US dollars to build, but it also supplies 70 percent of the stadium’s electricity needs. Officials estimate the stadium will generate an average of 1.1 million kilowatt hours per year. When the stadium isn’t in use, the city will benefit from the extra energy. The roof also collects rain water for used inside the stadium, a system of pipes conveys the water to holding tanks underground, where it’s sterilize and then reused in restrooms, for the grass and half moom fountain and elsewhere. While computer modeling helps design the roof, Taiwan’s central weather bureau help determine summer time wind direction, computer simulation showed how the structure could maximize the natural cooling effect of the wind. To that then, the sides of the roof of the stadium don’t meet in a circle, but instead splay out, creating a natural wind tunnel to cool people off during hot summers. Without computers, modeling for many aspects of the stadium would still have been possible, but it would’ve been far more time consuming and far less accurate according to the deputy chief engineer. The 2009 world games run from July 16th to the 26th. With reporting by Dan Nicestead in Kaoshung, Taiwan, I’m Nick Barber, IDG News Service.