Manchester City Football Club (MCFC) could receive C&I-scale battery storage applications at its stadium and ‘campus’ development as part of its ongoing relationship with power management firm Eaton.
Last week the duo announced a multi-year partnership which will initially see the football club help promote the xStorage home battery system Eaton developed alongside Nissan, however at a launch event in London MCFC discussed a potentially deeper relationship.
Pete Bradshaw, director of estate development at City Football Group, said that the need for the club to adopt energy solutions at its site in the heart of Manchester was “critical”, adding that the club had “fully explored” the long-term sustainability of the Etihad Campus.
The campus, which lies roughly one mile from the city centre, has been the focal point of a large regeneration project centred around the football club’s Etihad Stadium – originally called the City of Manchester Stadium – which was built in 2002.
In recent years the land surrounding the stadium has been significantly redeveloped, including the construction of an extensive new training facility for the football club, similar facilities for other sports associations and public use, and other non-domestic buildings.
Future plans will see a university campus also added to the site.
Bradshaw said that the spate of development had resulted in a considerable power demand from the immediate area, something which Eaton had been called in to address.
And Bradshaw added that the “incredible possibilities” of battery storage technologies would be something that would “fit in very well” with the power demand profile of the site.
“A large-scale [storage] solution for the Etihad Campus would be exciting,” he said.
Meanwhile Tom Glick, chief commercial officer at City Football Group, said that Eaton providing battery storage capabilities for the campus would form part of the “second phase” of the two parties’ relationship, with the first predominantly focused on the marketing of Eaton’s solutions using MCFC’s channels.
C&I applications for battery storage have long been discussed, specifically for locations with on-site renewable generators which could utilise the storage capacity to maximise their self-consumption.
But despite the benefits, uptake of battery storage within the C&I sector remains low with few notable installations.
Sainsbury’s remains one of the more well known adopters of C&I storage, having last year confirmed that it was trialling the technology ahead of a possible wider roll-out.
