The Clever Marketing Strategy of NRG

NRG is a company with a clever name and marketing strategy. The company provides sustainable energy choices, including solar power, for consumers. It is also a company that has sustainable energy solutions installed at six stadiums that are home to professional teams. Those energy solutions provide a way for the company to let attendees of the games held at the stadiums know that solar energy and alternative technologies, such as LED lights, are choices. Information about solar and those other technologies is available at the six different stadiums.

The LED lights and electric vehicle charging stations installed at the six stadiums, plus solar power, serves as “real life examples of alternative energy solutions," as Elizabeth Killinger, president of NRG Retail and Reliant, said to me.  The company installs them in “hopes of educating the people who've visited those stadiums that solar is something they can consider for their homes and businesses, as well as some of the other alternative technologies whether that's electric vehicle (EV) charging or the LED lights.” In other words, the company can spread the word about sustainable energy solutions while putting their name in the minds of potential consumers. It's a brilliant strategy.

Sustainable energy solutions currently being installed at NRG Stadium in Houston

The latest sustainable energy solution is currently underway at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas, home to the Houston Texans and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. NRG Stadium is one of the first professional football stadiums in the U.S. to install high efficiency LED lights on its field. The LED field lighting system, made up of over 65,000 LED lights, will use 60 percent less energy than the system it replaced. The LED lighting system is part of a sustainability master plan for the stadium, which also features an EV parking lot with six charging stations.

Killinger says that NRG included LED lights and EV charging stations to provide “some example solutions that we could put in place so consumers and visitors from wherever they come from could see first hand and experience sustainable solutions.” Most people have heard about EVs and LED lights, but they haven’t experienced them first hand, she pointed out. The EV charging stations and LED lights are “intended to give them real examples to give them the power to be free, which means they are free to generate their own power and make sustainable choices, and to then consider those sustainable choices for their homes and businesses.”

Solar power installations at NRG Stadium and other stadiums

NRG Stadium will also feature solar power. Over 700 solar panels will be installed at the stadium. The solar panels will be placed on four different canopies. One will be over the EV parking lot, another one over the ticket booth, and the other two will be over the bridges that connect the parking lots to the stadium. The power generated by the solar panels will only be a “small fraction of the energy of the park,” Killinger explained. However, they are “intended to be demonstrations sites.” Just as the EV charging stations and LED lights are good examples of sustainable energy solutions, so will be the solar panels being installed at NRG Stadium.

The five other stadiums with sustainable energy solutions designed by NRG also feature solar power. FedEx Field, home of the Washington Redskins has over 8,000 solar panels, enough power to meet the needs of about 300 homes in the metro D.C. area. The power generated is equivalent to over two and a half times the power consumed during regular season game days. There are also thin solar film lines on top of a 30 foot statue of a quarterback near the stadium entrance, known as Solar Man.

The solar installations at the six stadiums prove what Killinger believes: “It doesn’t what kind of business you have. You can consider solar for your energy needs.” And they also prove that if a stadium can contain solar, so can a home.

Image credit: Eric Kayne/Invision for NRG/AP Images