This Sunday, the eyes of the world turn to MetLife Stadium in New Jersey for the World Cup final. Beyond the football, the venue itself has quietly been running on solar power for over a decade, a ring of 1,350 panels (known as “The Solar Ring”) wrapped around its upper tier, generating enough clean energy to light up its LED displays and feed excess power back into everyday stadium operations.
It’s not a one-off. Across the US, stadiums have been adding solar for years, from rooftop arrays to purpose-built solar canopies, quietly powering the games, gigs, and events that fill them.
So here’s the question: could Ireland’s big events do the same?
Why This Isn’t a New Idea, But It Is a Newly Good One
Ten or twenty years ago, solar power at a large event would have meant a small array quietly topping up a few battery packs, barely making a dent in the electricity a stadium or festival site actually needs. Panels were expensive, bulky, and comparatively inefficient.
That’s changed. Solar technology has advanced enormously in the last two decades. Panels now convert significantly more sunlight into usable electricity; they’re cheaper to install, and battery storage has caught up too — meaning power generated on a sunny afternoon can be stored and used later that night, when the lights and speakers really need it. What was once a nice-to-have sustainability gesture is now a genuine source of meaningful power.
Where It Could Work
- Sporting events: Stadiums have huge, often underused roof and car park space. Solar installed there could offset floodlighting, screens, and concourse power — the kind of steady, predictable load that suits solar well.
- Concerts and festivals: Outdoor events traditionally lean on diesel generators to power stages, sound systems, and vendor stalls. Solar-plus-battery setups are increasingly used at festivals abroad to cut that reliance, running silently in the background instead of the familiar generator hum.
- Large public gatherings: Anywhere with sustained daytime footfall and evening demand (festivals, markets, multi-day events) is a candidate for the same model: generate by day, store, use by night.
The Bigger Picture
None of this means every event needs to go fully off grid overnight. But the direction of travel is clear: solar has moved from a symbolic gesture to a practical power source, and the events industry — in the US and increasingly elsewhere — is starting to treat it that way.
As Ireland’s own event calendar grows, from major matches to festival season, it’s worth asking whether our biggest stages could start generating some of their own power too. The technology has caught up. The question now is who moves first.
