The fleet of temporary equipment powering the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games has been unveiled, with over 120 items of kit tailored to help meet the host’s stringent environmental targets.
The Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games aims to make these the most sustainable Games yet. It is working closely with its partners, suppliers, and wider stakeholder to reduce its carbon footprint wherever possible.
Central to this is the way the event is powered and, as energy is a key part of the Games’ carbon footprint, focus has been given to driving emissions down.
The Games are taking a ‘mains first’ approach, using the existing infrastructure from venues reducing reliance on additional generators, and where temporary energy is needed, working closely with Aggreko to drive emissions down.
As the Official Modular Energy Solutions Supporter for Birmingham 2022, Aggreko is responsible for planning the temporary energy framework for all 15 of the Games’ venues. These include large-scale venues such as Alexander Stadium and Coventry Stadium & Arena, to greenfield sites of regional parks like Warwick and Sutton. The company is also powering additional requirements in sites key to the Games, including the Birmingham 2022 Villages in Birmingham and Warwick and the remote vehicle security site.
The fleet includes 117 of Aggreko’s latest Stage V generators from 30kVA up to 600kVa running on hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) – a more sustainable fuel source. Stage V engines provide greater efficiency than traditional generators, as well as reducing NOx emissions, CO2 emissions, and other harmful particulates. The acoustically designed equipment also results in a reduction of noise, considering the local surroundings of the venues.
The generators will be operating in Load on Demand configuration, meaning they will replace a large, constantly operating generator with a group of smaller generators that can power up or down automatically according to demand onsite.
To support the generator set-up, Aggreko will be supplying several batteries at 300 kVA. A specialist Y-Cube energy storage battery will be used in the fleet depot centre at the University of Birmingham to power the Games’ electric vehicles.
The generators and batteries will be used in tandem to aid carbon and fuel savings and at Victoria Park solar power will also be garnered in conjunction with the hybrid generators.
Primary generation and distribution equipment will take advantage of Aggreko’s remote monitoring centre which will continually analyse performance to ensure equipment is always running at peak efficiency.