Turning on the lights at the National Stadium at Windsor Park is obviously an integral part of preparations come match day, with 194 floodlights and 389 additional high level lights needing to be managed, among other smaller yet equally important lighting fixtures.
As the Official Energy Partner to both Northern Ireland Football and the National Football Stadium at Windsor Park, Electric Ireland NI was delighted to catch up with Louise Doyle, the Stadium Director and one of the people responsible for switching on and off the lights at the stadium.
Lighting up Windsor
“The lights need to be turned on for every game. Typically they would be turned on an hour before doors open and three hours before a match starts,” says Louise.
Having started her career as an assistant manager at the original Wembley Stadium in London, Louise came to work at the National Stadium at Windsor Park three years ago and has been there ever since. Since starting she has seen the old Windsor Park transformed into the state of the art building it is today.
“We had to bring in temporary flood lights during building work, and these lights brought with them all sorts of fun and games!” says Louise. "With the new state of the art stadium and lighting we can now turn the lights on and off remotely from home.”
Although Louise mentions turning on the lights from home, there are instances when this is not possible.
“For international matches it’s a different story. We need to turn the lights on in person as we’re using so much power and there are stipulations from UEFA and FIFA to follow. We're also filming these matches so, even if it’s a bright, sunny day, we still need to put the lights on full whack to keep lighting levels consistent.
New Stadium, New Lights
“The new lighting system was staged over a year and completed last October. It’s an LED system which is great as it is low energy and allows us to turn the lights on and off from home (where possible),” says Louise. “For smaller matches and corporate events we can turn the lighting down if we need to and not use energy unless we have to. We work with HJ Martin who are doing some great work in terms of our energy management, and we’re at the beginning of measuring energy usage with them.”
Not stopping at recent advancements, Louise and the team have been working on improving the stadium’s lighting standards at an international level.
“We will have new LED lighting boards around the stadium for the NI vs. Germany match. Half the LED boards were ours and half Germany used for their advertising.”
“The “grow lights” are the most quirky mobile lights we have,” continues Louise. “They do suck up a lot of energy but they’re essential to keeping the grass in a good condition during the winter months. If we didn’t have them then the grass wouldn’t grow quick enough. It’s keeping a good balance between when we use lights and when we don’t… It would be lovely to have some sort of external lighting to highlight the stadium but there’s the challenge of using power and energy usage as opposed to making something look pretty. We obviously have to think of the environment and not use up power when we don’t have to."
Electric Ireland as an Energy Partner
“We love working with Electric Ireland as the information they give us is really superior and useful when working together on energy usage. The way they’re billing is done is brilliant and they’re really proactive in terms of providing good customer service.”
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