The 4-day Bonnaroo Arts and Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, which attracts about 80,000 music fans each year, has installed a permanent solar power array to help power up the festival with renewable energy.
With his environmental leanings, I’m sure Paul McCartney will be pleased to know the festival is using solar power. Sir Paul is a headline act for Bonnaroo this year. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, and Mumford & Sons are also booked to play. However, the latest update is that Mumford & Sons have had to cancel, as bassist Ted Dwane is recovering from emergency surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain!
Company SolarWorld supplied the 50 kilowatt solar panel system for the festival. The solar array is the first permanent solar installation at a major U.S. music festival. The solar panels will produce around 20% of the power needed for the festival every year. Bonnaroo’s solar array consists of 196 roof-mounted solar panels. It’s installed on the roof of a stage area.
The solar system was partly funded from a small portion of ticket sales. An extra $1 was added to tickets sold over the previous 2 years of the festival. Additional opt-in donations were also available to people attending Bonnaroo.
Major music festivals create many tons of trash and have quite an environmental impact generally, so it’s good to see a major festival making an effort to install renewable energy permanently. Would you like to this happening at other festivals?
Image CC licensed by loppear: Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival
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