This year Superbowl XLV will be held at the Cowboys Stadium which is a very impressive stadium and is considered to be the largest constructed and continuous arch structure in the world. The stadium cost 1.2 billion dollars to build which means the never ending upkeep on this monster of a sports complex is also a high price tag with energy usage being one of the biggest overhead costs.
Each of the arches ways 3,255 tons and spans a 1/4 of a mile in length with the top of the arches reaching 292 feet above the playing field. The jumbo tron (otherwise known as very large TV) sits above in the middle of the field and uses a heck of a lot of electricity.
Speaking of electricity usage this stadium has a $200,000 electricity bill and much of that comes from air conditioning, heating and lighting. A good portion of the heating is covered by their natural gas heating equipment so much more of their electricity usage will be from air conditioning rather than heating.
So what will the electricity usage look like for Superbowl 45? For a football stadium it would normally be about $20,000 during a game in the summer time because of all that air conditioning cooling everyone off.
Superbowl 45 will be occurring during the winter on February 6 2011 in Dallas Texas. The weather during the Superbowl on Feb 6 2011 will be around 50 degrees when the game starts off around 6:30.
There will not be much heating or cooling with a mild temperature of 50 degrees. The main consideration for what will be using electricity or energy in general are the lights, equipment and jumbo tron.
I wager to believe that the electricity usage for that night will likely only be about $7500 during the game and maybe even less.
For an event of this magnitude $7500 is hardly anything. At 8.6 cents per kWh you are talking about 87,209 kilowatt hours of electric usage for the night. That is about double the monthly electricity usage of a local Dallas TX barbecue restaurant.
The eco-snobs will have to choose a different night to complain about how the conservative friendly Texans in the Dallas Cowboys Stadium are polluting the environment as 87,209 kWh for Superbowl 45 is exceptionally good and might I add eco-friendly.