Illustration: How to make events more sustainable in energy management
What is a sustainable event?
Whether it’s a large festival, such as Boom’s Tomorrowland (Belgium), Rock in Rio (Brazil), Glastonbury (UK) or Munich’s Tollwood (Germany), or smaller local events with just a few hundred people, the trend is to reduce carbon footprints.
But what is a sustainable event? To fulfil environmental standards, organisers need to consider an event’s impact in a number of ways: water management, footprint of food and drink supplies, waste management, venue location, travel footprint and energy efficiency nowadays all come into consideration when planning an event. Responsible event management means asking: how can I reduce the impact of my event on the planet and on the local community?
It is clearly a journey to get from recognising the event's challenges to identifying a pathway to staging a truly more environmentally conscious version of it. Event managers and organisers, therefore, face several challenges, often related to a lack of knowledge and information about their event inefficiencies. As a result, they often neither understand the costs of these inefficiencies nor the potential solutions. Others, even if they have a basic appreciation, do not understand well enough exactly what they need in terms of planning, measurements and reporting to make the necessary changes.
Will sustainability change the business model of the event industry?
The simple answer is, yes: sustainability is already changing the business model of much of the event industry and with it the way we think about event management. And help and detailed information is nowadays out there. In fact, in the past decade it has become possible for event managers to organise their events to internationally agreed sustainability standards. The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 20121 document lays out the sustainability standards for the entire event industry, from supply chains and caterers to logistics and builders. Its purpose is to provide some sort of framework for people in the events industry to examine and measure any event against the ISO standards.
The document’s authors describe it as, “a practical tool for managing events so that they contribute to the three dimensions of sustainability – economic, environmental and social.” Aimed at large and small events alike, it is now applied to everything from sports and concerts to conferences and exhibitions. Its framework offers “a common international language for events management” across the world, with accompanying identifiable standards, measurements and monitoring that aim to produce a more sustainable event.
Ways to reduce the impact of your event
Venue choice
Do some research on the venue for your event and check out whether it has structures and logistics in place to deal with putting on a sustainable event.
Supply chain
As well as checking the carbon footprint of your own supply chain, ask whether the venue’s supply chain (ranging from caterers to stand constructors) meets your expectations. If an event’s suppliers are not committed, your event will struggle to fulfil your standards.
Water management
Used for drinking, washing and food preparation, water management is a key factor in putting on any event. This means organisers need to make sure they don’t put strains on water supplies for the surrounding community and use recycled water where possible for non-drinking activities. Also consider choosing a location with water fountains, for example, and water-efficient appliances, such as low-flow showers.
Waste management
Good waste management means event organisers need to be sure that waste is separated and recycled wherever possible. Considering how to reduce waste is central to responsible waste management, and this can start with something as simple as not providing drinks in disposable packaging.[1] Instead, provide reusable cups, plus plates and cutlery, for example. When hiring toilets, choose a company that provides water-efficient facilities and that properly disposes waste and uses certain cleaning fluids. In addition, provide individual waste bins for clear separation of waste.
Transport
Travelling to and from a venue is a major factor in determining the footprint of your event. Choose a location with good public-transport possibilities and encourage visitors to use them. Climate-neutral mobility can also be promoted by alerting visitors to the possibility of offsetting greenhouses gases.
Energy efficiency in event's power supply
Reducing energy consumption is one of the best methods of making CO2 savings, and this can be done by changing the energy source. With this, an event can be quickly on its way to becoming much more cost-effective. Therefore, a key factor in running an event is energy efficiency, but what does this mean? In basic terms, it refers to the amount of power generated (measured in kW hours) for every litre of fuel used at an event. When it comes to a diesel generator, typically employed at such events, the relationship between fuel used and power generated is far from linear. Why? Simply because a diesel generator uses a specific basic amount of fuel whether employed at full capacity or not.
Because of a lack of detailed information on the application’s load profile, event managers tend to rent a generator that is bigger than needed. They go big to make sure they can cover any load profile; however, this can be very inefficient. Often, these generators must deal with low loads, and the result is that the engine struggles. With low loads the generator engines can cut out, and this can reduce the lifespan of the engine and add maintenance hours – as well as interrupting energy supplies. It can be compared to driving a car at 20 kilometres per hour in fifth gear.
In addition, if the generator is too big for the size of the job it is doing, its fuel usage will be higher than required (even though it only delivers the same amount of power that a smaller generator would provide). An oversized generator, therefore, leads to two efficiency problems: firstly, the unit gives less power for every litre of fuel used; and, secondly, it creates more power than is usable. These inefficiencies in turn are costly both financially and environmentally.
A further problem is that some event managers believe that if they have their own dedicated power source, they will not need to worry about availability and reliability. This leads them to hire diesel generators dedicated to their own use, rather than share. Because of a lack of generator and power-usage information and knowledge, however, or simply because of generator availability, they end up with over-sized models – with the associated costs mentioned above. A final common example of energy inefficiency at an event is that some equipment, such as with an electric starter motor, needs a great deal of power to get going; but they then require much less energy once they are up and running.
Tips to improve energy efficiency of an event
Support the power grid
On the surface, an obvious alternative to a diesel generator is to take energy from the grid, and to choose a company that has a 'green tariff' and delivers energy from a renewable source. Unfortunately, a music festival or a cultural event that is in a fairly remote location, such as Glastonbury, for example, means this is not always possible (town- or city-centre events are more amenable to this). Nevertheless, while it is sometimes not possible to get energy from the grid during an event, a solution is to use battery-driven Energy Storage Systems charged from the grid beforehand – or during downtime (typically during the night). These Energy Storage Systems can then work autonomously while the event is running, providing power without distracting noise and emissions. In addition, energy storage solutions can support the grid, partially taking on the load when it exceeds the grid’s maximum coverage.
Are you looking for sustainable energy storage solutions?
Solar-powered solutions
Glastonbury is a good example of a festival that has become increasingly sustainable in recent decades: rooftops on the farm where the festival takes place now have thousands of solar panels that helps run the weekend-long summer festival, while for the rest of the year they continue to provide energy for other uses. Solar-generated electricity is a source of renewable energy that converts sunlight into power via photovoltaic cells. Of course, solar power is to some degree weather determined, and it works at its best when the sun is shining, during the day. However, recent technological breakthroughs enable an efficient use of solar energy, even if it’s cloudy. Battery-driven energy storage solutions store energy coming from renewable sources for its immediate or later use, avoiding a waste of energy.
HiLight S2+ solar light tower
There are other technological solutions that feature these batteries to make the most of solar energy. Solar-powered light towers, such as Atlas Copco’s HiLight S2+, are another innovative example. Light, easy to set up and use, they have their own solar panels and storage unit, working autonomously all year round when solar yield is greater than energy demand.
Wind energy
Wind power shares many of the advantages and challenges of solar. In the case of wind, kinetic energy provides renewable power. As with solar, its most efficient use is enabled using Energy Storage Systems, though the weather also plays a role in dictating the power generated. With good planning, however, solar and wind hybrid systems can be highly reliable and hugely efficient methods of generating power, particularly due to the rapid advances in the performance of lithium-ion battery technology in recent years.
Right now, increasing numbers of those familiar outdoor music, book, food and other festivals are being powered by a generator-lithium-ion battery hybrid combination. Atlas Copco’s range of Energy Storage Systems, featuring the ZBP and ZBC models, is an example of the new developments in providing a constant and reliable supply of energy. Once Lithium-ion batteries are charged, they efficiently use only the energy required and therefore overcome any low-load issues. And when running with a renewable source, the batteries further optimize energy consumption and significantly reduce local emissions.
The rapid development of battery technology in recent years is radically changing the event industry. This technology, combined with ambitious aims to minimise the venue’s carbon footprint, is shaping a more responsible and efficient approach to event planning and management.
