Behind the scenes at De Kuip football stadium
Menno Spitteler, Electrical Engineer, HyTEPS
Feyenoord FC’s stadium ‘De Kuip’ (Feijenoord Stadium) hosts vast concerts, conferences, and events in addition to football matches. Recently, 144 lighting fixtures in four lighting columns and 58 fixtures in the edge of the stadium roof were replaced by LED lighting.
This is obviously very good from a sustainability perspective, but such major changes to an installation can have quite an impact on Power Quality. HyTEPS investigated and mapped this – with a clear final report based on simulations and measurements, we indicated that we assess the probability of Power Quality-related interference as ‘low’.
This was the first time I got to run a project like this entirely on my own, including customer contact and all visits. Fortunately, I wasn’t thrown in at the deep end but received good technical guidance from colleagues where necessary. We always work according to a four- or six-eyes principle, which means you always check each other’s work. This also ensures that you keep a critical eye on your own work – if it’s not good enough your colleagues will find out!
It was particularly fun and interesting to take a look behind the scenes at the stadium. Thanks to the good relationship with the client, I was also occasionally able to look at places outside the ‘scope’ of the actual project. For example, I was able to visit some places you would normally never get to see, such as the players’ tunnel. The great thing about our profession is that you regularly get access to unique places that you would otherwise not have access to. De Kuip is of course a very nice example of this.
