Smart energy stadium.

Open, scalable systems integrate with the stadium's existing infrastructure – avoiding a costly rebuild while supporting more than 81,000 fans on matchday.

ABB becoming Borussia Dortmund (BVB) Energy Management Partner, building on years of continued technological collaboration at SIGNAL IDUNA PARK. Together, the two organisations are transforming Germany's largest football stadium into a showcase for smart energy management, resilient electrification and intelligent building automation – developing a scalable approach in one of the world's most complex and operationally demanding venues.

Every matchday, more than 81,000 fans transform SIGNAL IDUNA PARK into one of football's most electrifying venues. Home to Borussia Dortmund's famous 'Yellow Wall' – Europe's largest standing terrace – SIGNAL IDUNA PARK has hosted Bundesliga, Champions League, World Cup and European Championship matches, making it one of the most iconic stadiums in world football. Behind the scenes, another kind of performance makes that experience possible: the intelligent management of energy, electrical infrastructure and building systems.

Few environments test infrastructure more intensely than a football stadium. Within hours, SIGNAL IDUNA PARK shifts from everyday operation to serving supporters, broadcasters, hospitality areas, security systems and other critical services. Energy demand can rise sharply from near-zero to peak megawatt levels while operational continuity remains non-negotiable.

LtoR: Carsten Cramer, Benedikt Scholz, BVD; Mark Zwerner, ABB; Dr. Stefan Rohrmoser, ABB; Dr. Frederic Nimmermann, ABB; Thomas Baltzer, ABB and Dr. Christian Hockenjos, BVD.

"Thousands of people come together to create something extraordinary at Signal Iduna Park," Dr. Christian Hockenjos, Director of Organisation & Managing Director BVB Stadium Management GmbH, said. "With ABB, we have a partner that shares our ambition to continuously improve performance – not only on the pitch, but throughout the infrastructure behind it. Building on our existing collaboration, we want to set new standards for efficient and future-ready stadium operations."

Unlike a new-build stadium designed from scratch, SIGNAL IDUNA PARK is an established venue whose infrastructure has grown and evolved over decades. Originally opened in 1974, the stadium demonstrates how existing infrastructure can be retrofitted through electrification – a challenge relevant across many building types, industries and public infrastructure.

Borussia Dortmund was the first Bundesliga club with climate goals validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). The club also operates the world's most powerful photovoltaic system on a football stadium roof, with an installed capacity of up to 5 MWp – a commitment advancing further with a 3.75 MWh battery storage system planned before year-end.

Over the past years, Borussia Dortmund and ABB have worked together to modernise the stadium’s electrical infrastructure, KNX-based building automation, heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC), and energy management systems. This work builds on SIGNAL IDUNA PARK's ISO 50001-certified energy management system, which provides a structured and independently validated framework for monitoring, measuring and continuously improving energy performance. As “Energy Management Partner,” ABB will now build on this foundation to further optimise energy use, increase operational transparency, and support Borussia Dortmund's continuous improvement of energy performance.

Central to the approach is an open, scalable architecture that integrates with existing systems and can expand across the wider BVB portfolio, from the Dortmund-Brackel training ground and academy to BVB FanWelt and future EV charging infrastructure. What is being developed at SIGNAL IDUNA PARK is not just relevant for the world’s most demanding live venues, but for the modernisation of complex existing buildings everywhere.

"Our partnership with ABB demonstrates how a long-standing collaboration can lead to concrete solutions that deliver strategic value for both sides. Together, we are making Signal Iduna Park more efficient and future-proof," says Benedikt Scholz, Director Internationalisation & Commercial Partnerships at BVB.

"Signal Iduna Park combines the demands of critical infrastructure with the complexity of a building that has evolved over decades,” said Mark Zwerner, VP Strategic Partnerships at ABB. “By bringing together electrification, energy management and building automation through an open, scalable architecture, we can help Borussia Dortmund improve performance while maintaining reliable operations. What we prove here can provide a blueprint for complex buildings far beyond football."

This partnership brings together two organisations committed to demonstrating that energy efficiency, operational performance and long-term resilience go hand in hand. ABB's mission to help buildings become more energy-efficient, connected and future-ready – combined with Borussia Dortmund's SBTi-validated climate targets and experience operating one of Europe's most complex and most visited properties – sets a new standard for what's possible in demanding, real-world environments.

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Wireless races ahead!

Though not strictly speaking in our sphere of interest we thought this wireless application would be of interest to you. And possibly inspire you with an idea for one of your applications!

LPRS is supplying their market leading easyRadio Advanced (eRA) wireless modules to Microgate, the specialist Italian sports timing system manufacturer, for use in their new wireless athletics training timer – WITTY.

The new Microgate WITTY has been designed as a portable, practical and precise athlete timing system which meets all the requirements of the latest training methods. It can perform all the measurements typical of modern athletic preparation including sprint, shuttle, resistance and courses whilst also meeting many custom requirements. The WITTY can acquire results with accuracy higher than one thousandth 1/1000 of a second.

Significant features of this timer include an intuitive and easy to use graphical interface with a colour display, simple and fast learning process, single or double timing photocells available with unlimited extra photocells for unlimited intermediate times, calculation of speed (km/h, m/s, mph), fast data transfer to PC (for rankings, data assessment and export) via an on-board USB interface and water resistant. Operational for 10 hours from internal batteries WITTY is supplied in a backpack for complete portability.

The key to the success of the system is the use of LPRS eRA modules to transfer data from the self-configuring photocells, which are easy to set up and offer fast repositioning when moving from one exercise to another. The eRA modules offer reliable wireless transmission up to 150m range and provides selectable transmission frequencies, allowing multiple WITTY systems to be used in the same training area.

Federico Gori of Microgate srl comments; “We have a very good working relationship with LPRS and have used LPRS products for many years in our ski race timing gates. The new eRA wireless modules offer exceptional versatility and were simple to design-in to our products.”

The Microgate WITTY system may be expanded with the addition of further photocells (single or double) to record lap times. A range of accessories are available including starting pads, time displaying LED boards and direction indicators. The WITTY is compatible with the Microgate Optojump Next system, an optical measurement system which can measure flight and contact times during the performance of a series of jumps to an accuracy of 1/1000 of a second.

The recently introduced easyRadio Advanced (eRA) wireless module range of transmitters and transceivers incorporates the unique LPRS easyRadio software protocol and build on the simplicity of previous easyRadio (02) modules by remaining true to the original brief of “reducing time to market by removing the complexity associated with the radio software development interface”.

As well as many new and advanced features eRA offers a much improved transmitting range with latest field tests reporting 1.6 mile coverage owing to narrow-band operation and greater immunity from interference. Other innovative features on the easyRadio Advanced transmitters and transceivers include the ability to change the bandwidth of the radio from 150KHz down to 12.5KHz thus providing narrow-band performance on a wide-band budget. eRA modules can also interface to other raw data modules using either FSK (FM) or ASK (AM) modulation modes. Using the free flash firmware upgrade tools from LPRS new updates/features can be quickly programmed by engineers, making a truly future proof solution. Designed with a back compatible pin configuration, current easyRadio 02 users can easily upgrade to easyRadio Advanced versions with a minimum of fuss.

In addition to designing and manufacturing the highly successful easyRadio Advanced (eRA) wireless modules, the full LPRS product range now includes, Raspberry Pi and Arduino Shield wireless platforms, narrow band long range wireless modules from CDP, the IQRF range of wireless networking components, the IQVC range of visual control panels together with antenna, wireless key fobs and a wide range of sensor products.