Hammarby Fotboll saves time, costs and energy with Guard Field Smart

The technology was installed on the Årstad Idrettsplass football pitch in January 2023, and has functioned excellently, according to Bosse Wedlund and Steinar Thon, who work to ensure optimal pitch conditions for Hammarby IF.

”Until the new system was put in place, I spent a lot of time keeping track of weather forecasts and adjusting the heating manually. I think it is fantastic that technology now exists to help football clubs save time, energy and costs. Then more resources can go toward creating the joy of sport,” explains Bosse Wedlund.

He has been the operations manager at Hammarby for the past 15 years, and is now passing the baton to Steinar Thon.

”We are very pleased with Guard Field Smart. Now we always have full control over the football pitch, and the heating is adjusted automatically. This frees up time for other tasks, and in the long run I believe we can also save money, even though Bosse has done an exemplary job with the heating control,” says Thon.

He explains that operations have been simplified, and that the club gets more for less with the new technology:

”When we took over operations after the good work of Bosse, we did not have the staff resources for the necessary monitoring and control. But now, already in the first season, we have a consumption level similar to before, despite the temperature setpoints being set higher than previously.”

In Norway the technology has been adopted on several artificial turf pitches. The Eliteserien club Odd Ballklubb saved as much as NOK 600,000 during the first year the system was in operation on two of the artificial turf pitches of the club.

How Guard Field Smart works

Neither heavy investments nor installations are required to manage the heating system better.

”Guard Field Smart is specially developed to ensure optimal heating control of artificial turf pitches. We connect a brain to the heating system that is already in use. This brain retrieves information from a variety of data sources to manage the system as cost- and energy-efficiently as possible,” says division manager at Guard Automation, Jon Egil Ek.

Guard Field Smart controls the heating automatically and works on all types of heat sources. The system analyses weather data such as solar and wind conditions, temperature and cloud cover, and calculates how much energy is required. The goal is to use as little energy as possible for heating while maintaining good conditions.

The technology was developed by Guard Automation, which collaborates with Unisport on the sale of the service.

Simpler operations with a complete overview

Bosse and Steinar explain that they now have full control over the heating system on the artificial turf pitch. Using a mobile phone, tablet, PC or Mac, they have access to a dashboard that provides a complete overview of temperatures, energy consumption and costs, both historical and future.

”Guard has followed up with us very well. It is clear that they truly care and do everything they can to help us succeed. I recommend Guard Field Smart to other football clubs that want to spend less time and energy on winter operations of artificial turf pitches,” says Steinar.

Bosse Wedlund supports this:

”On many artificial turf pitches the heating is kept at 100 per cent all winter, even when it is not necessary. That is a waste of energy and money. I believe many will find the service from Guard very useful,” Wedlund concludes.