BeyHive, it's time to get in formation for Beyoncé's world tour in support of her Grammy-nominated album, Renaissance. It's Beyoncé's first solo tour in more than six years, and her fanbase is buzzing right now.
Queen B will be touring across North America and Europe, from Stockholm to New Orleans, but one performance stands out for a very specific reason. On June 17, 2023, Beyoncé will perform at Amsterdam's Johan Cruijff Arena — a soccer stadium that creates its own clean energy and stores it in electric car batteries.
From jumbotrons featuring instant replays to light systems that sync up with a performer's music, stadiums like the Johan Cruijff Arena use a lot of energy. But unlike other stadiums, this Dutch arena offsets its power consumption with one of Europe's largest commercial energy storage systems.
The Johan Cruijff Arena features 4,200 solar panels on its roof, all of which send power to a collection of batteries sourced from new and used EVs.
The stadium can store three megawatts of power at a time — the equivalent of 148 fully charged Nissan LEAF cars. That's enough to charge up 500,000 smartphones or power 7,000 homes for an hour, even after the sun goes down.
This clean energy storage system is significant not only because it supplements the Johan Cruijff Arena with cheap, clean energy, but also because it can take pressure off the electricity grid during large events by reducing the power draw during times of high demand. And during outages, the arena can supply neighboring homes with backup power.
In a statement, Nissan said the power storage system at the Johan Cruijff stadium demonstrates that retired batteries can play a role in "making the whole energy system more efficient and sustainable."
Long term, EVs are the best car option for our planet because they eliminate planet-overheating carbon air pollution. Although as of now, one of the main drawbacks is these vehicles' need for difficult-to-mine minerals like cobalt and lithium.
The Johan Cruijff Arena aims to solve this problem by creating a circular economy for EV batteries. Rather than trashing these lithium-ion batteries, the Johan Cruijff Arena extends their life cycles with a new purpose.
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