EM2 Venue in Groningen has the scoop to be the first stage in the Netherlands and Europe to be completely self-sufficient in its power generation and storage by means of solar panels. In addition to the green hell, Groningen now also has a green pop temple!
Sustainability of the event industry
On the roof of EM2 143 solar panels have been installed combined with a battery pack. Together good for 50 KW power storage! As an experimental stage, the location takes a big step forward in making the event industry more sustainable. The combination with battery storage may not (yet) be of interest to many companies and households because peak consumption is usually during the day. In addition, the return conditions are often more favourable. However, for the event industry, the demand for power is usually highest in the evening. It will also become more favorable to store electricity in view of changing regulations such as feed-in (net metering).
Green ambitions
EM2 is an unsubsidised stage and falls outside the schemes for sustainability subsidies because they fall outside the large-scale consumption scheme. The entire project is therefore paid out of pocket, which amounts to a considerable investment. However, they see the opportunity to profile themselves as a sustainable event location and to appeal to a specific segment of companies that also want to propagate green ambitions in their business operations.
Sustainable corporate vision
The installation of solar panels is in line with the sustainable business vision of the event location. EM2 has been in existence for five years now and has been working from the start on making both the site and the location more sustainable. For example, they were the first podium in the Netherlands to replace their soft plastic cups with plastic hard cups. The EM2 'barn' was also built in a sustainable manner based on the cradle-to-cradle principle.