• BBC’s Radio 1 Big Weekend
  • BBC’s Radio 1 Big Weekend
  • BBC’s Radio 1 Big Weekend

Project Details

Project Description

Working with Festival Republic to provide site power and lighting solutions for the BBC’s Radio 1 Big Weekend event, Power Logistics deployed power monitoring and LED technologies to ensure the event delivered its sustainability objectives.

Festival Republic and the BBC are both committed to delivering sustainable events and this was a major factor in appointing Power Logistics as the temporary event power company for the event. Part of our remit was to reduce fuel consumption and therefore CO2 emissions and environmental impact.

Our onsite team focussed predominately on the main stage, utilities, production, catering and bars, press and event control as traditionally these are the areas that waste the most energy and fuel.

The stand out element of the technology is the bespoke power monitoring system that’s been developed in-house by our research and development team. It provides real time knowledge and data regarding an event’s energy usage.

The system utilised QR codes on every generator, fuel tank and fuel bowser, as the equipment was sited, its location, running hours, fuel usage etc. were uploaded via a server to a purpose-built database. This allowed us to deliver a % breakdown offuel usage across identified areas with real time data so event organisers can see exactly how much fuel is being used and where.

Implementing the bespoke power monitoring system we were able to track the full energy and fuel usage of each generator area. Coupled with our existing power monitoring, we were able to see in real time, what the installed power network was doing.

Monitoring during event days allowed the team to make decisions based on actual usage. This enabled them to reduce the number of generators running by implementing ‘load on demand’ technology and re-routing the electrical cable infrastructure. Actual showtime running generators were reduced down from 7 to 3.

A guide on fuel saving for this area was circa 4000L, which equates to just over 10 Tonnes of CO2 savings!

We provided a detailed breakdown of which plant and operator used which quantities of fuel over the event, this gives accurate usage for each machine which will help the organiser to plan the amount of plant required for next year’s event. This information can also allow fuel to be recharged back to contractors if required.

In addition, Power Logistics installed ‘dusk till dawn’ sensors on all external site lighting, ie when the sun rises or sets the lighting switches off or on accordingly which resulted in a saving during the course of the event of 1.07MWh of energy. Which is the equivalent of around 350L of diesel or around 938 Kg of CO2.