Always a warm welcome for Derby County fans
I visited Derby County's Pride Park this week to take a closer look at its concourse heating systems. All concourses with the exception of the away fan section are warmed either by an all electric system (West Stand) or a gas fuelled system (horseshoe).
Having spent many years on the cold concourses as a lifelong Derby fan, new owner Melvyn Morris had 'supporter comfort' top-of-mind when he bought the club in 2015 and the systems were then installed.
As a former engineer I can confirm the technology is straightforward, both variants utilising radiant heating from above rather than air heating, which would be lost in the rafters through open grills. The big surprise however, the cost. I expected it to be significant but it wasn't.
Install cost was much reduced due to the club taking on a chunk of install responsibility and the electric variant being supported on a cost effective Unistrut framework. The gas based system was more expensive to install due to a large main having to be run into the stadium, but this has capacity to also supply other gas based infrastructure such as food counters.
Running costs appear amazingly small. A quick on-the-spot 'back-of-a-fag-packet' calculation of the electrical heating system, the more expensive of the two, brought surprising data. There are five areas of heating within the West Stand, a approximate calculation of 100KW per area reveals a running cost of less than ￡100 for an hour's use across the whole stand. I was told the gas system is 'significantly cheaper' to run.
The electrical system heats instantly so only needs to be switched on when needed, i.e. as fans enter the stadium, as half time approaches, immediately as the game ends, etc, so does not need any warm up time nor need to be left one throughout the game, so reducing the amount of time it is needed.
The gas system does need a warm up period and is left on, but gas cost is significantly cheaper than electricity cost.
It's not just the warm embrace of the facility by Frank Lampard's Derby fans that's positive, concession stand sales are markedly up for the club due to supporters being keen to arrive at the stadium early even on the coldest days. The club now has solid data showing substantial increases in F&B revenue since the installation of the heating systems.
So happy fans, relatively low install and running costs and increased F&B sales is good news for all. So much so even the giants of the Premier League have paying visits to Pride Park for their own fact finding missions. Levels of interest are such that DCFC is planning to hold a seminar for others to see the benefits of the system.
It is great to see, in what is viewed by many as 'profit first' industry, a club put the comfort of its supporters first only to then reap the secondary benefits of doing so.