A groundbreaking deal has been struck between a local biogas firm and Solo Agency to generate more than 950,000kWh of electricity using grass from the Isle of Wight Festival site, almost twice the amount of energy used during the annual festival.
Solo Agency, owned by Isle of Wight Festival leaders John and Caroline Giddings, has turned over the land it holds for festival camping to biofuel production – with grass harvesting being conducted either side of the June event. The land was previously managed solely for use by the festival so the new arrangement brings the land into productive use year-round.
Black Dog Biogas is a green energy company, set up in 2014 and expanded in 2018, to utilise agricultural crops from the Isle of Wight to generate electricity for the National Grid or local use. The plant at Stag Lane started production in 2015 and has been operating using maize, whole crop cereals and grass as its feedstock to produce biogas to generate electricity.
The digestate emanating from the plant is recycled back onto agricultural land for crop production.
The Isle of Wight Festival aims to be the most sustainable in the country and the new project is the latest in a host of initiatives designed to make the festival more sustainable. These include:
- No waste from the festival is sent to landfill
- Sustainable travel encouraged via key ticketing partnerships
- Strict Environment Requirements document issued to food and beverage suppliers with clear rules around plastic, waste and renewable materials e.g. only compostable serveware and cutlery are allowed to be used
- A deposit return scheme for cups and bottles to encourage re-use
- Water reduction measures such as the use of push taps across the site – with all water piping then donated to local farms at the end of the festival for use in irrigation
- a goal of a 50% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
The Isle of Wight Festival is committed to continuous improvement in sustainability and is currently working with the Isle of Wight Council on a scoping exercise around the potentially game-changing move of installing a new electricity sub-station near the site. This would enable the most energy-intensive areas of the festival to be powered from the grid rather than generators, leading to a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
John Giddings has said:
“I’m really pleased that we’re able to give our land a new lease of life, helping to generate renewable energy and making sure the fields are used productively year-round.
Article continues below this advertisement “On top of delivering one of the UK’s best music festivals on the island, we have also sought to play a positive role in the local community and we’re proud that we will be doing our bit in the push for a more sustainable future for the island.”
Caroline Giddings has added:
“We want the Isle of Wight Festival to be the most sustainable festival in the UK. Year on year we have done more to ensure that our event is as sustainable as possible, from small scale changes, such as the type of cups and cutlery we use, to systemic shifts such as the push to get the main stage area on the electricity grid. This latest initiative builds on that decade of work to keep us at the forefront of environmental activity in the industry.”
I Have never heard so much bull**** in all my life. So basically it’s an extra £1 per ticket to buy a mower that collects grass, a trailer and fuel to carry it and to pay the Twat that comes up with this crap.
The grass is used anyway, the water pipes are used at the next festival anyway and the other measures should be happening anyway without making the public pay for it.
There will be a sex tax in the camping field next with recycled condoms.
They could also reduce the amount of Methane by not having such a s##t line up. Pulp excluded.
Sorry JG your having a laugh, how can grass being used to produce Methane gas which is then burnt producing greenhouse gases whilst making electricity a green and sustainable method. The more than 950,000kWh quoted is also just a fantasy.
The CO2 released by burning this fuel is the same as the grass absorbed while it was growing. That makes it carbon neutral as it doesn’t add extra CO2 to the atmosphere over the course of its production.
Fossil fuels are introducing CO2 that was last in the atmosphere millions of years ago.
A lot of people don’t realise that all of the carbon in plants comes from atmospheric CO2 via photosynthesis. Eg Cellulose (wood) C6H10O5. The C comes from the air and the H10O5 comes from water (5 x H2O)
The grass absorbs CO2 while it’s growing, and releases the same amount when the gas is eventually burnt. So it’s carbon-neutral on a much faster cycle than trees.
Look into how much lpg is added to the so called methane gas produced to increase its calorific value, its all another big lie to make it look green when it’s not
LOL What about the Fuel used to cut the grass and then the fuel used to take it to the Bio Gas Plant.
Why not just build houses there, council would get more annually for council tax , than the meagre £86k for the festival.. Imagine how many homes they could build on that site.. / Move the festival out of Newport, to a area that would not disturb the regular traffic.. and then charge more rent for the land !!
But no Council would rather concrete over all of Ryde…
do you mean the ‘ grass ‘ that is dropped or left behind after the festival.. ?
Virtue signalling b.s.
How about you go plastic free, given the mountain of rubbish created by this event.
Is this the grass that is confiscated on the gates. Oh he means the green grass, what a plonker Giddings is. The only prize he could win himself is “The most business speak, without actually meaning anything” award.
Please, please can we have wind turbines on the festival camping and carpark fields, I would love to see them, they are majestic. They would be no noisier than the traffic, and I don’t believe that nonsense about them killing birds… climate change, cats and rat poison do that. Above all, we need all the sustainable energy we can get. And when we get sick of cheap electricity we can take them down.
It’s great all those children working in quarries to harvest the toxic rare earth metals with their bare hands or windmills …not.
Windmills are very expensive energy. Have you taken into account decomissioning costs?