Hydrologiq deploys first 100kVA hydrogen powered generator at Boomtown Fair.
A 100kVA hydrogen generator powered the public transport hub at top-ten UK festival, Boomtown Fair. Together, Boomtown and Hydrologiq are demonstrating how hydrogen can provide power solutions, and significantly decarbonise festival power in the future.
Hydrogen power business Hydrologiq has deployed a hydrogen-powered generator at UK festival Boomtown Fair. The generator provided power to the public transport hub for the week preceding the festival and all four days of its runtime.
With Boomtown focusing on creating a sustainable event for its 65,000 attendees and staff, the generator’s location meant that, for many, their first engagement with the festival site was with emissions-free power.
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This first deployment of a large hydrogen generator at Boomtown Fair has started building trust in the festival industry that hydrogen generators can be an alternative to traditional diesel power. Hydrogen fuel-cell generators are near-silent and produce water as their only by-product – no NOx, particulates, or CO2e emitted on location, with drastically lower total CO2e footprints.
Equally, the deployment highlighted developments needed to enable hydrogen uptake at scale. Coupled with the ethos of Boomtown, Hydrologiq and Boomtown are setting the standard for the future of sustainability for festivals.
Diesel fuel use is a major environmental and public health issue. The UK festival, live and sports event industry uses a huge volume of diesel through the widespread use of generators at events. One report puts this volume at 380 million litres a year.
The emissions from burning this volume of diesel is expected to have a significant impact on the environment and human health. As UK festivals like Boomtown Fair shift focus to creating sustainable events, there is a clear need for hydrogen to replace diesel use at scale.
Alongside collaborating with Hydrologiq to deploy hydrogen, Boomtown also transitioned from diesel to biofuel this year in a bid to reduce its carbon footprint even further.
Aran Bates, Hydrologiq director, said:
Many don’t realise it but festivals consume a huge amount of energy and resources.
“They are literally large pop-up towns, and with that comes all the significant plumbing and electricity demands of a large town. We want people to keep enjoying these fantastic social and cultural experiences, but in a way that is kind to our planet so our children will be able to enjoy them too.”
“Hence, we have to find alternative sources of energy that meet both aims, and hydrogen is one of those alternatives.”
“Yet switching from traditional diesel generators in the festival event space is not merely a question of cost or willingness to shift. There are some real technical and operational differences to other industries, such as that of construction or film.”
“Both the electrical loads experienced but also the operational and site set-up requirements can be very different. This means that both technology and operations need to be considered appropriately for hydrogen to take the place of diesel.”
This is another major deployment for Hydrologiq, trialing the capabilities of replacing diesel generators with hydrogen. The generator used for the deployment was a GEH2, sourced from Hydrologiq suppliers EODev.
Capable of up to a 100kVA peak, the GEH2 uses fuel cell technology that allows for near-silent, emissions-free power generation. Hydrogen was provided by BOC, and the deployment was supported by the UK Government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
About Hydrologiq
Hydrologiq is a UK start-up that helps businesses build a better world for their customers, and a cleaner, quieter workspace for their employees. Hydrologiq does this by tackling the huge problem of diesel use, taking businesses on a journey towards using hydrogen instead.
They break this journey into three steps: strategic planning projects, hydrogen market access, and real-world deployments.
Their experience managing deployments by bringing together a diverse group of suppliers to create complete and accessible solutions, along with their fuel monitoring and refuelling expertise, gives them greater insight into the strategic, financial, and practical elements of building a future powered by hydrogen.
About Boomtown Fair
- Boomtown Fair 2022 ran from Thursday 11th to Sunday 14th August.
- Boomtown Fair is the seventh-largest music festival in the UK. [link]
- Each year of Boomtown Festival is billed as the next chapter of its story. But for 2022, Boomtown reset the clock. This year was Chapter 1: The Gathering. From the Boomtown website: “Now it’s time to imagine a new beginning for the world, to think and act individually but as part of a collective, a community, to write and imagine a new story for the world, in which we all have a part to play.”
About Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology
- How green is hydrogen? [link]
- How do fuel cells work? [link]
- How does hydrogen compare to batteries? [link]
READ the latest news shaping the hydrogen market at Hydrogen Central
Hydrologiq deploys first 100kVA hydrogen-powered generator at Boomtown Fair, September 1, 2022
