The emblematic Stadium of San Mamés rehearses a digital solution to monitor the state of the grass of the Athletic Club playing field, collaboratively deployed by the club and the Sener engineering and technology group. This unique system, a pilot project adapted to the specific needs of San Mamés, is capable of registering and showing with great precision the evolution of parameters such as humidity, salinity, temperature, lighting, ventilation and quality of the grass in each area, and knowing how they affect the care of the natural grass.
The objective is to be able to analyze exactly the state and needs of the land, improving its care, and optimize energy savings and the use of water resources, consequently achieving a more sustainable management model.
Óscar Malo, Infrastructure Director of Athletic Club, points out that “the system that is being tested in our stadium may provide us with a tool that helps us improve the quality of our field of play with an optimization of the resources used in its maintenance, which delves into the club’s sustainability strategy, focused on the reduction of energy and water consumption”.
“Sports stages are going through an interesting technological evolution, with notable advances such as San Mamés,” says Juan Francisco Paz, Sener Architecture Director. “This unique solution will allow the club to advance in its environmental objectives while improving the care of its playing land, being a technological reference in the field of sports infrastructure.”
San Mamés: Staff of the lawn
The solution allows you to check the conditions of humidity, salinity and temperature of the grass and know how others such as solar radiation, rain or ambient temperature affect these parameters. Its algorithm takes into account all these factors, providing information practically in real time that facilitates decision making by the facilities managers, taking into account the unique context of each area (for example, its solar incidence or the accumulation of rain). Consequently, it will be possible to save energy and water, improving the care of the natural grass while the carbon footprint is reduced.
It is a flexible solution that must adapt to different cases of use, such as changing lighting throughout San Mamés’ day due to the design of its roof. The solution has a digital control picture that integrates all the information, from multiple internal sources (such as terrain -deployed sensors) and external, (such as Meteorological Stations and forecasts of AEMET), and which, additionally, includes the monitoring of Lezama sports facilities.
Sener’s experience in sports facilities
The project adds to Sener Porfolio in the sports facilities market, where it has solutions such as Hypogea, its patented retractable grass system. It is an innovative solution that allows to remove and protect the natural grass from the stadiums quickly, safely and automated through a set of mechanisms that reposition and displace the trays that divide the pitch.
In turn, it integrates advanced grass conservation systems (such as irrigation, ventilation, heating and drainage, among others). The Hypogea solution has been successfully deployed at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium.
