Greener power at outdoor festivals

Report on power use at outdoor festivals outlines opportunities for greater efficiency and sustainability.

A U.K. group dedicated to “greener” outdoor music festivals has released a free PDF document, The Power Behind Festivals: A Guide to Sustainable Power at Outdoor Events, on its website.

Designed for promoters and festival organizers, the guide pools information gathered over 18 months, including the findings from research conducted over the summer of 2012 that involved surveying a number of U.K. festivals and their approach to power.

Among the key findings of that research were that generators were often being run at low loads, which is inefficient, and that lack of accurate information in advance about festival requirements contributed to the low loads.

The report claims that any festival, regardless of size, location or theme can save at least 10 percent on its energy bill by following the ideas within.

The goal of the Powerful Thinking campaign, originally organized as the Green Festival Alliance, is to work with promoters and suppliers to find efficiency savings and renewable solutions for the power needs of outdoor festivals.

“The Powerful Thinking campaign is an opportunity to be part of a real shift in the festival sector—sharing knowledge and experiences as a festival community in this way will allow us all to reduce environmental impacts more effectively, develop a robust market for temporary renewable power and ensure a sustainable, low carbon future for our industry,” says coordinator Chris Johnson.

The campaign presented an “innovations zone” at the 2012 Showman’s Show, U.K.’s annual outdoor event services expo, highlighting the latest industry-ready solutions and innovations in power generation, toilets, consumables, waste management, structures, water provision and materials.