This major east London stadium will soon be ‘one of the world’s greenest sports and concert venues’

The London Stadium, one of the capital’s biggest sports and music venues, is getting a green makeover. The stadium, which was built for the 2012 Olympic Games and now hosts West Ham FC’s home games, big-ticket music gigs, athletics meets and the odd baseball game, has gotten the green light to install thousands of square metres of solar panels.

Put forward by the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), the Solar Membrane Project will see the east London venue’s roof smothered in 6,500 square metres of solar membrane panels that convert sunlight into electricity. But that isn’t all. The stadium will also undertake a range of measures to reduce energy costs and carbon emissions, including LED lighting, chiller and air handling improvements and kiosk energy-saving devices. 

Once that’s all in action, the London Stadium will massively reduce its energy consumption. In 2022 it used a whopping 11.5million kWh per year, but that’ll be reduced to just 8.5 million kWh per year by 2026. The stadium reckons it’ll then be ‘one of the world’s greenest sports and concert venues’.

The solar panels specifically will apparently generate 850,000 kWh per annum, which is equivalent to the power used for all the London Stadium’s major yearly events – typically about 20 football matches, two MLB games, four concerts and one athletics meet.

The current roof design will be adapted to incorporate the panels by Populous, the architecture firm which originally designed the stadium. The project will cost £4.35 million in total, £500 million of which has come from the Mayor of London’s Green Finance Fund.

Commenting on the project, Mete Coban, Deputy Mayor for Environment and Energy, said: 

‘These solar panels are a game changer for the London Stadium, turning it into one of the world’s greenest sports and concert venues and hugely reducing its energy use and running costs.

‘The Mayor’s Green Finance Fund offers exciting opportunities to help public sector bodies lower their carbon footprint and become more sustainable, and I encourage organisations to get involved as the next round of funding opens and we continue to build a greener, fairer London for everyone.’

Graham Gilmore, chief executive of the London Stadium’s operator LS185, said: ‘We are committed to becoming one of the most sustainable live event venues in the world.

‘This investment means that we can drive down our carbon footprint and become the venue of choice for artists and event owners who are serious about sustainability. This ambitious large-scale investment will reduce our energy costs, but most importantly our carbon footprint.’

Time Out and London’s stadiums

The London Stadium isn’t the only venue in the capital going through major changes. On Time Out, freshly renamed Twickenham has just outlined plans for more gigs, while Arsenal’s north London stadium could get massively expanded.

Get the latest and greatest from the Big Smoke – from news and reviews to events and trends. Just follow our Time Out London WhatsApp channel.

Stay in the loop: sign up to our free Time Out London newsletter for the best of the city, straight to your inbox.