Gillette Stadium scores a touchdown for sustainability

Gillette Stadium, home to the New England Patriots, New England Revolution and Patriot Place – and one of the U.S.’ most well-known venues – was built with sustainability top of mind. The stadium’s operations team wanted to drill down on how the venue was using electricity. They partnered with Enel North America to integrate a suite of clean energy solutions that would provide a more sustainable experience at the venue. 

Since 2017, Enel has helped Kraft Softs + Entertainment execute a sustainable energy strategy at Gillette Stadium. The two companies worked together on a number of projects to reduce the stadium’s environmental impact, lower overall consumption, support a cleaner and resilient local electrical grid, and create a new stream of revenues. A hat-trick for sustainability.

Demand response programs enable energy consumers to earn payments for reducing consumption temporarily when called upon to help meet the electric grid’s needs during peak demand periods. These programs provide valuable standby capacity to prevent blackouts and other grid disturbances when the grid encounters emergency conditions, such as heat waves or extreme cold spells that put strain on the grid.

Participation in demand response also results in cleaner, more affordable electricity by helping to reduce the need for expensive, fossil fuel-dependent infrastructure to supply electricity when demand is high.

Gillette Stadium’s facilities staff worked closely with Enel to create an optimal strategy to maximize earnings from demand response programs in New England. The stadium’s energy reduction plan involves:

• Shutting down HVAC units in select areas of the stadium
• Shutting down non-essential lighting
• Reducing usage of water chillers

In exchange for powering down these non-essential areas when needed by the grid, the stadium receives standby payments for agreeing to participate, as well as payments for performance when called upon. Since 2017, the stadium has earned more than $125,000 by participating in multiple demand response programs.

Gillette Stadium’s energy reduction plan also helps to reduce capacity charges on the venue’s electricity bill, which are calculated based on the stadium’s peak electricity usage at the time when demand on the electric grid is its highest over the course of the year. This approach has significantly reduced the stadium’s electricity costs, while also making peak demand levels easier and less expensive to maintain for New England’s electric grid operator and utilities.

Enel helps Gillette Stadium provide a more sustainable sporting experience by supplying the stadium with locally generated, zero emission clean energy through renewable energy credits (RECs). Enel procures the RECs from the local New England power grid to offset the venue’s consumption.

The results have been remarkable. Using RECs, the stadium could operate solely on clean energy during the 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023 seasons.

To further support the stadium’s goal to make the venue a more eco-friendly environment for both guests and workers alike, Enel installed 50 JuiceBox Pro smart charging stations, powered by JuiceNet software. Visitors to Patriot Place with electric vehicles (EVs) enjoy access to a grid-connected smart charging solution free of charge. 

The JuiceNet platform monitors historical charging patterns and acquires real-time input and signals from the electric grid to aggregate and manage charging station demand. This allows Gillette Stadium to support the local utility’s peak electricity demand management by charging vehicles at times when electricity costs are lower and renewable energy is most available.

Gillette Stadium also partners with Enel to consolidate and manage more than 80 utility accounts spanning the stadium and Patriot Place, the shopping center surrounding the stadium.

Enel’s enabling technology helps Gillette Stadium to:

• Automate the collection and processing of utility data, eliminating the need for manual data entry
• Gain visibility into both site- and portfolio-level energy cost drivers, with granularity into line items and in-depth reporting
• Automatically collect, format, and upload data to the US Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR program, which rates commercial buildings based on energy efficiency