Access All Areas Autumn 2023 | Page 13

AUTUMN | FEATURE

Glastonbury ’ s evergreen future

On the back of the entire 210,000-capacity Glastonbury Festival being powered by renewable energy for the first time in its 53-year history , Access caught up with Emily Eavis to discuss the challenges involved and what the next steps are
Words : Christopher Barrett

While 7.6 million BBC TV viewers and many thousand festivalgoers watched Elton John ’ s farewell show at Glastonbury this year , few will have appreciated that the remarkable show production on the event ’ s iconic Pyramid Stage was powered entirely by green energy .

At this year ’ s event , all generators across the Glastonbury Festival site , including those that power the Pyramid Stage , were run on sustainable , renewable palm oil-free HVO fuel , made from waste cooking oil , helping to reduce lifecycle CO2 emissions by up to 90 %.
Other measures included Arcadia ’ s giant fire-breathing spider being run entirely off recycled biofuels while a new wind turbine in Williams Green provided clean sustainable power to
Emily Eavis
market stalls , and all production areas were powered by electricity from fossil fuel-free sources or solar PV and battery hybrid systems .
How challenging was it to power Glastonbury Festival entirely by renewable energy and what were the key learnings ? Sustainability has always been at the heart of Glastonbury . Our Green Fields area has always been completely powered by solar and wind energy . Being able to power the
entire festival without having to rely on fossil fuels this year has been a real breakthrough , but it is the culmination of lots of baby steps that have seen us steadily increase our use of renewable energy – both from the grid as well as from our own onsite sources like our solar PV array on our cowshed roof and our anaerobic digester that turns waste cow manure into biogas . We ’ ve been trialling alternative and renewable fuels for over a decade . And after some successful trials with virgin , palm oilfree renewable HVO at the last couple of festivals , we decided to use it – in place of fossil oil-based fuel – in all our generators for this year ’ s festival .
How will that mix of power source usage , ( HVO fuel , batteries , wind turbine , solar etc ), evolve in the coming years in terms of the solutions that are being prioritised ? This year ’ s switch to renewable fuels is just another step on our journey . In the long term , we ’ d like to be
Photo : Andrew Allcock
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