Ever since the Abu Dhabi United Group walked through the doors at Manchester City, our now hugely successful owners have not been shy when it came to investing in the first team squad, and equally there have been a plethora of local investments made to grow the club, support the community and redevelop the local area around the Etihad Stadium, and this week we have a new venture - solar panels.
Plans have now been officially submitted to Manchester City Council which, if approved and there is no reason as to why they should not be, would see us install nearly 11,000 solar panels at our training complex and the Joie Stadium (home of the women's and academy teams). It would make us one of the largest producers of renewable green energy in the wider world of football and for those who like a small flutter you can look at the football and tennis odds whilst pondering the green move towards clubs being sustainable.
Pete Bradshaw, director of sustainability at the club, explained that the plans would see us 'completely offset the power required to run the day to day operations of the City Football Academy and in becoming 'one of football's largest producers of self supplied, renewable energy' it would also be a first for a Premier League club in terms of the scale and magnitude of our plans. With an estimated projection of 4.39MWh of renewable energy every year, the power generated will also be shared with the Etihad Stadium itself for further gains.
This has been done previously, with Ajax, Galatasaray and Plymouth Argyle (to name just three) all investing in the production of their own clean energy, but the scale of our own plans mean that the potential for power generation would be larger than the capability of the system installed at Galatasaray's stadium in Istanbul.
Having been joint top of the table in 2019 in the inaugural Premier League Sustainability table, the club have already made their intentions clear when it comes to being 'net zero' by 2030 and with planning permission surely being a formality, this will be another giant step by us to reach that target as it builds on our existing initiatives surrounding the topics of water and plastic. If everything goes to plan, it is expected that the new system will be up and running, and fully operational, by the end of 2024.
The 7,000 capacity Joie Stadium will be home to more than 3,000 of the panels, whilst it is estimated that a further 3,942 panels will be located on the roofs of other facilities on site, such as the First Team and Academy Building, and finally 3,830 panels will be installed on frames over foot paths and pitch side areas of the academy.
As fans will know, in more recent years we have adopted a number of sustainable practices, including the purchase of 100% renewable electricity under our power agreement for the last eight years, the removal of all single use plastics on a matchday, as well as rain water capture for reuse and recycling in excess of 70% of our generic waste.
It will be interesting to see what the club comes up with next, as we are bound to see a number of other clubs quickly follow our lead here I would imagine.