Arcola Theatre Powers Latitude with a Fuel Cell

August 4 , 2008

London’s Arcola Theatre, renowned for having the world’s first fuel cell powered
studio, has taken a brave new step in delivering low energy lighting and hydrogen
fuel cell power for this year’s Latitude Festival.

Working with regular partners White Light, Selecon, ETC and Pixel Range, Arcola
Theatre provided lighting for the entire Theatre Arena using a mixture of LED and
low power tungsten technologies; cutting power consumption by over 70%.
A 5kW Gencore fuel cell, supplied by London Hydrogen Partnership in association
with Logan Energy, powered the lighting rig, with hydrogen provided by BOC. The
fuel cell operates almost silently producing nothing but electricity and clean water.
Arcola have enjoyed great success in delivering low power lighting in their own
studios, but Latitude presented new challenges – not least that the theatre tent was
not blacked-out so the lighting needed to compete with, or rather complement,
daylight.

The fuel cell and low energy lighting add to organiser Festival Republic’s efforts to
reduce the environmental impact of the entire event, including solar showers and
reusable cups. This project is part of Arcola Theatre’s extensive range of
sustainability activities, collectively referred to as Arcola Energy.

Arcola’s Executive Director Dr Ben Todd said:

“Latitude is a great opportunity to push the boundaries of fuel cell and low energy
lighting technologies in a high pressure daylight environment. By powering the
Theatre Arena we demonstrated these technologies, at close quarters, to 20 leading
theatre companies and 25,000 festival-goers. We look forward to being part of many
more green events”.

For more information see www.arcolaenergy.com or contact
Ben Todd, ben@arcolatheatre.com / 07974 240 612

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